Timing of transitions in demos?

["Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Jessica Lange is <<creating a demo (using DemoShield) of our new
software product... Some scenes, however, have "animation" -- e.g., a
line of text appears with a graphic; the graphic changes to show a
new state and new text appears to explain it -- I am not sure how
long the first bit of text should be visible before the next
appears... Are there any rules of thumb on how long text should
remain onscreen before it disappears or the scene automatically
switches to the next scene?>>

If you really want to automate the transitions, then the only good
rule of thumb is that you should actually test how long it takes to
read the text, figure out how the text relates to the visuals, and
then realize that there's nothing else to read and comprehend. As a
simplistic usability test, find a dozen people who aren't intimately
familiar with the software and get them to run through these three
steps. Time them. Come up with an average time, and if you want a
one-size-fits-all solution, add a fudge factor to accomodate the
slower individuals. Voila! You'll have to come up with a different
time for each "scene", since the complexity of the concept (and
thus the time required to understand it) will vary between scenes.

On the whole, though, I suspect the best solution is to forget the
whole notion of automatic transitions and let the users set their own
pace. That way, you can meet the needs of everyone: the slow readers
won't find the presentation moving too fast, and the fast readers
won't get frustrated waiting for the next transition.

<<Any rules on font sizes? (unlike web pages, the viewer cannot
change the size)>>

Same rule as before: pick a batch of font sizes and ask your panel of
usability testers to define the size that works best for them.
Average and standardize (unlike timing, you can stick with the same
font size throughout). If you wanted to get really scientific about
this, you could probably test response times to each font size, but
that's probably overkill.

<<If anyone knows of any resources (net or print) specifically for
designing demos (DemoShield resources aside), I would appreciate
hearing about it.>>

You could always take a course in instructional design (or do a web
or literature search on that terminology), but again, your users are
your best source of design guidelines. Define carefully what you
want to accomplish (increase sales, teach how to use, "noise and
fury signifying nothing", etc.), and then based on your understanding
of your audience, figure out how to use their existing knowledge and
preferences to structure the demo.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"Patience comes to those who wait."--Anon.


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=