Re: Screenshots in help

[Joachim Noreiko <jnoreiko yahoo com>]

--- Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com> wrote:

> Hi Joachim
> 
> While browsing mail.gnome.org archives I came across
> this message of  
> yours from March 27, which never arrived in my Inbox
> for some reason:
> >
> > --- Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Subject 10 also suffered severely from Free
> Software help writers'  
> >> continuing weakness for including full-size
> screenshots in their help  
> >> -- FFS, stop doing that!)
> >
> > Just so I've got this right -- you want FEWER or
> NO full size  
> > screenshots in the docs? How about practically no
> screenshots at all,  
> > of any size? That would be fine by me, as they're
> a pain to make,
> > maintain, and translate.
> > ...
> 
> Before the BetterDesktop studies, other studies had
> also found that  
> people confuse screenshots with the actual
> interface.  
> <http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Ab7nx7LLa3EJ: 
> www.infomanagementcenter.com/enewsletter/200411/ 
>
secondary.htm+%22even+fairly+sophisticated+users+were+clicking+the+graph
> 
> ic%22>
> 
> More about avoiding screenshots:  
> <http://g2meyer.com/usablehelp/singles/263.html>
> 
> When screenshots really are necessary, I suggest:
> *   crop them to only the relevant control or window
> area
> *   reduce them to 75% or so (as mentioned in the
> thread)
> *   make them fade out on each side, so they look
> even less like a real
>      window
> *   make them short looping animations (about 1
> fps), when appropriate
>      for illustrating a process.

I *knew* I'd read about scaling them down somewhere! 
I was asking about this on IRC the other day and
nobody else had heard of it.

I'm away right now -- could someone copy the salient
points and links of the above to a new bug, so we
don't forget -- file against either the Doc Handbook
or the Style Guide, I forget which one talks about
screenshots.


> An even better approach would be to add to yelp and
> GTK the ability to  
> walk you through the real interface without
> screenshots. For example,  
> in a "How do I send customized letters?" help page
> for Abiword,  
> clicking a "Guide Me" button might highlight the
> "Tools" menu, then  
> highlight the "Mail Merge?" item in the menu once
> you opened it, then  
> wait for you to choose a file before describing the
> next step, and so  
> on.

That's probably for even beyond Mallard...

Joachim


		
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