What You See Is What You Perform

By Surag Ramachandran

“I hear I forget, I see I remember, I do I understand” - Chinese Proverb

When the software is enhanced incorporating more and more features, the user manuals grow in size proportionately. The technical writer patiently authors pages and pages to describe the additional functionalities. This trend leads to an obvious question – who is going read the entire manual?

The users are expected to RTFM (Read The Fantastic Manual) so that they do not come back with queries that are answered in the user manuals. Some very good user manuals written for highly complex software products running into hundreds of pages suffer failure due the following factors:

• Lengthy complex manuals run the risk of ambiguity. 

• Users tend to loose interest quickly and try to learn by trial and error or from somebody who already knows the product.

The audience requires scenario-based learning in addition to the conventional user manuals. They require something that is a live walk-through which also gives them a chance to do the same. They require demos, simulations, presentations, wizard guiding, and interactive tutorials. The animated demonstrations have an advantage of WYSIWYP (What You See Is What You Perform). They gain instant acceptance and reliability and are easier to follow. They grab more user attention and focus when compared to static written textual material.

Show Me How?

There was a time when creating a “show me how” was too expensive and technology-intensive. For instance, the company should have an in-house production department with studio or hire a third party to do it for them. With screen casting software tools, technical writers can produce professional demos, simulations, presentations, wizards, and tutorials from their own desktop computers. Screen casting is the process of capturing the computer screen output and publishing as a video file with or without audio narrations. Now, the users can WTFM (Watch The Fantastic Manual). 

Three steps in creating an animated demonstration:

1. Capturing:

Screen capturing is the process of recording the onscreen activity of the working of a software application.

2. Editing and Enhancing:

Editing includes adding textual editing of annotations like call outs, balloons, text boxes, and so on. You can enhance it further with voice-overs, videos, pictures, sound effects, and so on.

3. Publishing:

Publishing is the process of generating a finished file for web or secondary storage devices like CD, DVD, and so on. The output formats include flash movies (.swf files), java applets, standalone exes, gif animations, uncompressed video format (.avi), windows media player formats like .asf and .wma, and handouts (.pdf files, .doc files, .ppt files, and individual images where each slide is an image).

Show Me How?

There are a lot of screen casting tools in the market. Following are some of them:

Some basic tools support only the screen capturing and re-playing them with little or no editing capabilities. There are advanced screen capturing tools that provide enhanced editing capabilities like smoothing out of erratic mouse trailers, smart captioning, quizzing features, and so on. Screen casting programs can be divided into two categories:

1. Those that support interpolated screenshots. These tools take screenshots per event, like clicking the mouse button, hitting the keyboard keys, and so on. The file size is generally less, but the output is sometimes not according to the plan. For instance, the rapid appearance of a new screen that seems to come from nowhere may sometimes confuse the user. 

2. The second type of screen casting tools provides fluid movies. These type of tools record all the activities that appear in the screen. Yes, they record the mistakes done while capturing too; but there are provisions for editing them. 

Tips to Create Effective “Show Me Hows”

1. Written Script:

It is better to have a well written procedural script that will help in capturing the required screens in a sequential manner. Though there are good editing methods provided by many of the screen capturing tools, it is better to have the flow in a correct, logical manner to reduce the amount of rework.

2. Content Development: 

Just as with the content writing, it is recommended to tailor the demo for different knowledge levels of the user. For instance, basic steps and overview can be presented to a novice user while intricacies and factors of value addition can be demonstrated to a seasoned user. 

3. Synchronization:

Some users do not have speakers or prefer to keep the sound mute in their system. This should be remembered while incorporating sound. In audio narrations, the same person who made the first narration will be required in the demo later too, when there are some changes in the software. There should be accuracy in the synchronization of mouse movements, audio narrations, and screen appearances. 

4. Feedback to the User:

Depending on the complexity of the application, there can be different levels of practice sessions for users. The users must be given feedback on their activities. The feedback can be general and also detailed. The general feedback can be informing them whether they were successful or not in performing the required set of activities. The detailed feedback shows them what else can be done, and what results they can expect for that action.

Determining What to Screencast?

Communicate with the SMEs, developers, testers, customer support teams, marketing teams, and if possible, the end-users themselves to determine the tasks you are going screencast. 

In general, if you need a, 

• mental picture to visualize the functioning of a task

• practice session for understanding it fully

most probably, your users too will need it.

Surag Ramachandran is Senior Principal Engineer with Honeywell Technology Solutions Lab.