Summary: designing a demo--timing

["Jessica N. Lange" <jlange -at- OEE -dot- COM>]

For the archives (and upon request)....

I asked about the timing of scenes in a demo, where text appears and
disappears automatically:
      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?

Following are the responses I received. I'll be following their advice!

My thanks to all who responded. The people on this list are an invaluable
resource always, but especially when venturing into new territory!

----------------------------------------------------
Jessica N. Lange mailto:jlange -at- oee -dot- com
Technical Communicator, Ohio Electronic Engravers, Inc.


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I would try as hard as possible to make it so that the user had to click
Next for any text to change. I've seen text automatically change when
necessary, and it worked in the cases I've seen, but I read fast. I don't
know if it would be frustrating for a non-native speaker to try to read the
text before it changed. It might cause one of these people to have to click
the Back button several times to get the first bit of text read. Not a good
thing!

Of course, if you have the text sitting there *too* long, you're going to
have people who've read it already clicking the Next button to move on,
when would probably not be a good thing. It's a tight line you walk....

-David Castro
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When I was studying film animation at university, the general rule was three
seconds for every word onscreen, not counting conjunctions, articles, and
prepositions.  However, being a fast reader, I found this annoyingly long.
So I timed how long it took me to read it three times, and averaged the
result with what I got from the rule given to me.  No one ever complained
(about the text, anyway).

-Emru Townsend
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In a previous life I was a project manager on several multimedia
     projects.  I didn't do the programming myself, so check this out
     before you panic, but . . .

     Do you know *exactly* what the specifications of the computer that
     will run the demo are?

     We always tried to develop programs on exactly the same type of
     computer that would be used for playback, so we knew exactly how it
     would look.  This includes whether the program would be copied to the
     hard drive and then run or run directly from the CD or diskette.  And
     if it's run from the CD, what speed is the drive?

     A computer that's faster than the one you used for development may
     show your animations faster than you intended.  And the opposite is
     true for slower computers.  This might apply to your question about
     how long the first bit of text should stay on screen before the next
     one appears.

     If you don't have control over the playback computer, maybe the best
     bet is to make the viewer click Next for every change of graphic.  In
     other words, instead of having the graphic change after X seconds,
     have the graphic change only after the viewer clicks Next.

- Beverly Robinson
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What I'm doing on a demo right now is prompting the user when to click next.
Even though the slide is timed, the user could very well finish with the
content and not want to wait. However, I want to give them a visual cue when
the animated text is actually finished. Another way would be to highlight
the next button/graphic when it's time to move on.

As far as timing goes, that's really a matter of reading speed. How long
does it take for the average user to get through the text? You might have
someone sit down and read a few representative examples, then set the timing
according to their pace.

- Bill  Burns
------------------------------------------------------------

I just finished a graduate course in developing computer based training
programs (CBTs), and many of the questions you asked were addressed in my
class.

Maybe you need to look for information using the keyword(s) CBT, computer
based training, etc.

Regarding your question about timing:  It is better if text that displays
incrementally is user controlled...that is, determine if there is any way
for
you to have a "Next" button within a scene (in addition to a "Next" button
to
move to the next scene).  I'd name the buttons two different things -- such
as, "More" and "Next" or something like that.  The reasoning behind user
controlled action is that users read at different rates.  Some of your
readers
may be bored if you time it too slow, others may think you've timed it too
fast. It also adds a bit of interactivity to an otherwise passive
presentation.

You might also make the "Next" button (that would take you to the next
scene)
inactive until all of the information for the current scene has been
displayed.

-Kirsten Petersen
-------------------------------------------------------

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.

--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
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