Elsewhere in this book, we have discussed how to plan and write effective instructions. Well-written descriptions of products and explanations of procedures
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are important ways to convey needed information to users. But they are not the only way to do so — and sometimes not even the best way. In manuals, the graphical elements, such as photographs, drawings, charts, and tables, may be more important than the words. Clear, readable instructions and descriptions are necessary, but clear visuals are vital.
Why are graphics so important? Graphics have three key attributes that make them a critical part of manual design: in any manual, well-designed graphics
1. Attract the eye
2. Convey some kinds of information better than prose 3. Facilitate translation
Each of these makes it more likely that a manual will be used and understood — which in turn makes it more likely that the product will be used properly and safely.
Graphics Attract the Eye
As a society, we are less and less word oriented, and more and more picture oriented. The first generation to grow up watching TV is now middle-aged. The Internet, with its graphics-based Web pages, has gone from being used mostly for entertainment to being used for serious research and commerce. Every hit song has an accompanying video. No one in business would consider making a presentation without slides, transparencies, or a PowerPoint™* show. We have come to rely on graphical presentations of information nearly as much as on verbal.
Most users, confronted with a manual for the first time, will leaf through the
“pictures” before they will read the words. Most people will try to figure out a procedure from the pictures first and will read the text only as a last resort. Readers will not only see the pictures before the text; they will usually expect them to be more accessible than the text. Graphics can break up large blocks of text and give the manual a more open, “friendly” feel. By contrast, a manual that is only text looks extremely forbidding to most readers, even if the font is large enough for easy reading and there is adequate white space.
Graphics Convey Information Better
Some things are simply easier to grasp when they are presented graphically rather than in words. For manuals, graphics are especially important for these functions:
• Identifying parts of a product
• Describing certain procedures
• Presenting quantitative information
• Explaining spatial relationships
Each of these functions lends itself much better to pictures than to words. Let’s see why.
* PowerPoint is a trademark of Microsoft, Inc.
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Identifying Parts
All manual users will rely on the pictures to help make unfamiliar part names clear: when told to “tap leg closures firmly until well seated,” even the most word-oriented owner of a new barbecue grill will look at the drawing to find (with relief) that the leg closures are merely the little plastic caps that go over the ends of the grill’s tubular metal legs. Graphics are used for parts identification throughout a manual, from the initial setup chapter to the parts catalog at the end. Words absolutely cannot substitute for good visuals in helping the reader to get to know the product.
Figure 5.1 shows a typical use of a graphic for parts identification.
Describing Procedures
A standard classroom exercise to illustrate the importance of clear instructions is to have one student give verbal instructions to another on how to tie a necktie or make a peanut butter sandwich. The exercise is set up so that the student giving the instructions cannot see the student carrying them out. The rest of the class, however, can, and the result is always very entertaining. It points up the fact that sometimes it’s far easier to show someone how to do something than it is to tell how to do it.
In manuals, the photographs and drawings do the “showing.” With a graphic, a writer can show a user where to place a tool, how to test a belt for proper tension, or how to identify a hose that is ready for replacement. A series of pictures can lay out a sequence of actions, almost as if the user had an expert-in-residence to demonstrate the procedure in person.
Presenting Quantitative Information
Manuals typically contain a good deal of quantitative information. This informa-tion can range from gear ratios to baud rates, from load limits to dip switch settings.
Generally, quantitative information is much more effectively conveyed in the form of a table, chart, or graph than in words. This is especially true if the reader needs to be able to compare the quantities or otherwise relate the information. Numbers buried in paragraphs of prose are easy to miss and hard to relate to one another. Just as putting instructions in a series of numbered steps makes it easy for the reader to follow, putting information that the reader must relate (such as operating conditions or frequency of lubrication) in a table or chart makes it easy to see the connections.
The connections become obvious because charts and tables, like drawings and photographs, can be seen as a whole. Closer inspection may be needed to see all the details, but the entire graphic can be seen all at once. Prose, on the other hand, is essentially linear: you can skim it, but cannot see it all at once. The information is presented sequentially. As a consequence, paragraphs full of numbers become very confusing, forcing the reader to try to remember all the numbers until the relationships have been explained. It is particularly difficult if different kinds of numerical infor-mation are presented — percentages and costs, for example — because typically like units are not next to each other for easy comparison, but rather in separate sentences.
Such information is far easier to grasp when presented in a table or graph.
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Figure 5.1 Typical use of a graphic to identify parts. (From Direction 17291 Revision D, AMX 4 Operation, General Electric Medical Systems, Milwaukee, WI, 1989, 4. With per-mission.)
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Explaining Spatial Relationships
As with procedures, it is far easier to show where two parts of a product are in relation to each other than to describe the relationship in words. Graphics can become especially important when a description depends on the product being oriented in space in a particular way. What constitutes the “left” side, for example, changes with where one is standing in relation to the product. A good graphic can save many words of explanation.
Graphics Facilitate Translation
The pictures, or graphical elements, take on even more importance when the manual is written for an international market. Selling products overseas (or even in Canada) commonly means producing the manual in more than one language. Well-designed and well-reproduced graphics can make translation more cost-effective for international manuals. The reason is that English text tends to expand when translated into any other language. English has a very rich vocabulary, with many near-synonyms, differing only in nuance or connotation. Thus, one can be very precise (by choosing just the right word) and, at the same time, very concise (since “just the right word” exists). Other languages, with a smaller lexicon of words to choose from, require more words to attain the same precision. Thus, producing foreign-language text usually means higher printing costs on top of translation costs. “Pic-tures” do not need to be translated like text (although the callouts and captions do), so designing graphics to carry a significant portion of the information makes good economic sense.