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i'd think that since fields and the values in them look different in windows
applications than they did in 3270 screens, that a simple typographic
variation might be ok. you might consider using column headings to
distinguish between the field and the description.
just to complicate matters, even if you show the entire window at the
beginning of the section, would it be worth it to break out sections of the
window and repeat them closer to the description of the data elements. I'd
think it'd be kinda tough on the reader to be flipping back and forth from
the screenshot to the description. for example, envision what a typical
order entry screen might appear like - customer info, order info, shipping
info, pricing info. so you might have:
full window
Use this window to .....
customer info portion
field-desc
field-desc
field-desc
order info portion
field-desc
field-desc
etcetcetc
i think it worked pretty well for some of my doc, esp on really busy screens
with a lot going on.
Dan Roberts
droberts63 -at- earthlink -dot- net
Delores Delago for President
> -----Original Message-----
> I?m re-writing a document that was used with our old mainframe-based
> application. The new document, more than less, is a users? manual for the
new
> widows based version of the application. The client wants the new document
to
> resemble the old one as much as possible
>
> The old document had screen captures of the mainframe
> screens from a terminal. There would be one screen capture on a
> page followed by a few pages of the data elements? names and
descriptions. The
> data elements were numbered with a distinctive font set on the screen
shot.
> The screen shot would have an element such as "Last name," and next to
those
> words might have been a "1" so the reader of the guide knew that the
number
> wasn?t an actual part of the screen. A page later, the #1 data element
was
> "last name" with it?s description along side in a numbered table of all
data
> elements on the corresponding screen.
>
> So, is there a better way to do this? Is it enough to have a clear screen
shot
> and then in the subsequent pages list the names of the Data Elements, so
that
> the user views "last name" on the screen shot, and views "last name" in
the
> list of data elements, and that?s enough for him or her to make the
> connection. Or, do users need numeric clues in addition to the verbal
clues,
> like in the original document?
