QUERY: animations in online help

[-Melanie Albrecht- <Melanie_Albrecht -at- MOLDFLOW -dot- COM>]

I have been following the 'to dump or not to dump' thread with interest.
Only today, I realised that my dilemma is similar - how many animations to
include in the online help for a new engineering/CAD program.

Recently, my tech writing group employed a graphics person, whose first
task has been to create animations for online help.  We are now struggling
with decisions about the extent to which the online tutorials should be
accompanied by animations of the user's tasks.

The software that we are documenting has some similarities with CAD
programs - lots of manipulation of 3D models, buttons to click, and
selections to be made.  Some of these tasks lend themselves to animation,
being complex and difficult to describe in easy-to-understand terms.  Other
tasks are trivial.  Should we have long-ish animations showing many tasks,
or should we have lots of little ones?  And should we have animations for
only those tasks which are complex, leaving the simple ones to text-only
descriptions, or is consistency more important, so that all tasks should
have animations?

I would appreciate any opinions on this matter.  Unfortunately, our net
access is down, so I haven't been able to check the archives.  If this
topic has been discussed before, let me know and I'll shut up  :)

TIA
Melanie
melanie -at- moldflow -dot- com
Technical Writer
Moldflow Corporation www.moldflow.com


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