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Arguments for using illustrations instead of 3d animations
Subject:Arguments for using illustrations instead of 3d animations From:Martin Jonasson <martinjonassonjobbet -at- gmail -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Tue, 20 Aug 2013 11:00:33 +0200
A client is interested in replacing as much of the service information as
possible with 3d-animated instructions. However, I think this generally is
a bad idea.
My arguments are basically:
* 3D generated from CAD is harder to interepret than a illustration. The
3D contains a lot of noise (surfaces, colors etc) which forces the user to
try to find out what is the important part of the image.
* Animations creates time sequence which is hard to go back and forth. If
you hit play, watch the animation and then want to go back to one step it's
harder to find the right frames than to just skim through a
illustration/list.
The client uses the "a picture is worth a thousand words" arguments
(generally quite true, but try to show "a picture is worth a thousand
words" using a picture). However when he now wants to replace as much of
the text and manual with animatiosn instead I need help with more arguments
I'm afraid.
Have anyone else worked with a company with the same aim (replacing manual
with 3d animation)? How did that go?
I would love to hear your take on this as well.
Also I would highly appriciate any links/references investigating
3D/animation vs illustrations/text from a human factors perspective. I know
I read a paper about this a year or so ago, anyone got that?
Best regards
Martin
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