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Re: Screen shots within numbered steps, OR at the end?
Subject:Re: Screen shots within numbered steps, OR at the end? From:Lydia Wong <lydiaw -at- FPOINT -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 28 Jul 1998 15:12:15 -0400
Joyce Nickel asked:
>I'm writing a user manual for beginners (not techies).
>I've included screen shots within the numbered steps. The idea is to
>include the illustration along with the instructions. The problem is
>that my list of five short steps now takes three pages.
Joyce,
Can you shrink, or even better, trim your screen shots to show only the
portion of the screen necessary for that step? This is a fairly common
practice. I've seen shots that were trimmed with ragged edges to indicate a
partial screen, or that had "faded" edges to indicate the same thing.
Shrinking or trimming your screen shots might make your instructions less
lengthy, but keep the screen shots with the steps to which they belong
(which I think is important for clarity). Moving the screen shots to the end
will probably confuse your reader.
In fact, if the choice was between moving them to the end and not using them
at all, I'd not use them at all unless absolutely necessary. A lot of times
you can just tell the user that the application displays the XYZ dialog and
not even show a screen shot.
Just my two cents.
Lydia
----------------------
Lydia Wong
Technical Writer
FarPoint Technologies, Inc.
Morrisville, NC USA
www.fpoint.com
