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Thanks to everyone who replied to my question about the
effectiveness of full colour manuals. You gave me some good
alternatives and helped me get a different view of the
problem so that I could come up with a few alternatives of
my own.
Several people suggested using colour only where it is
meaningful. The suggestions for implementation varied from
using spot colour to using full colour for only those images
in which colour is important.
There was also a suggestion to, if acceptable to users, put
the documentation online. Unfortunately these users are not
ready for online docs--perhaps in a couple of years. Online
is a good solution though. It is possible to produce a full
colour user's guide without extra cost and the colours will
be accurate.
Another person said to go with the full colour docs. He
pointed to Microsoft Press books as a good example of full
colour user's guides. Browsing in the bookstore, I couldn't
find any Microsoft Press books in full colour, but I did
find another publisher--Osbourne, I think it was--that uses
colour very effectively. However, I'm afraid that, since I
designed this manual to be printed in B&W, if we print it in
colour it will look like "a manual designed for B&W and
printed in colour."
Of course, there was also an opposing opinion that full
colour manuals start to look "cheesy" after a while,
regardless of the quality of the content. This person feels
that it is possible to format a B&W document so that it is
even more eye catching than a colour document. Personally,
I'm inclined to agree with her.
At least two people felt that there was a flaw in the design
of the interface because of how it uses colour. I must come
to the defense of my client. They used colour very
effectively.
In my original email I wrote, "The developers used colour in
the interface to _reinforce messages_." Colour is a visual
cue, not the entire message. The idea is that the operators
will be able to see an alarm by its colour from across the
room and know that they should investigate a problem. Once
they are within reading distance they will be able to read
the error message. The colours are coded into the
application so changing the system colours won't have an
effect.
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