Home
>
Writing
>
The Value of Adding Images to Technical Documentation

The Value of Adding Images to Technical Documentation

It's clich?, but true-a picture does paint a thousand words. This is an important message to remember when writing any sort of user documentation, such as an installation guide or an instruction manual. A document that makes judicious use of images and diagrams will be much easier to understand than one that is composed entirely of text descriptions.

I observed this first-hand years ago, when a junior programmer at one company was asked to update the software installation manual for their machine controllers. One of the first things he did was to strip away all the screen capture images, reducing the entire document to plain text. "These images are just silly!" he said. "They take up space, and they're just not necessary. I trust that anyone who reads this document will be smart enough to figure it out."

This turned out to be a huge mistake. The technicians who had to use the manual had a difficult time making sense of its instructions. They had to repeatedly ask for clarification, and one of them told me that the pure text descriptions were just too cumbersome to follow. They were fearful of using these instructions at all, knowing that a single misstep could lock the controllers into an irrecoverable state. It was a ugly situation all around.

The problem was that this programmer didn't try to make things easy for the users. For one thing, he failed to consider that some technicians were not native English speakers, and that they might struggle with the wording. More importantly though, this programmer expected too much from his audience. He wanted to reduce these instructions to their bare essentials, thinking that would be adequate. He failed to consider that even an intelligent, otherwise careful reader might be tempted to jump over instructions, or would gloss over some critical detail. This is a common pitfall when time is short, and when the users are confronted with pages and pages of bland text.

A few carefully chosen images, with suitable captions, can go a long way toward preventing that. When I saw that the junior programmer was stripping away all the screen capture images, I cautioned him against that. "These images may not be strictly necessary," I said, "but they help clarify a lot of details. For one thing, they show the user exactly which button to push, or which window to select. This makes the instructions much easier to understand, and reduces the likelihood of a human error." To this day, I wish that he had heeded my warning.

Were the users intelligent enough to understand the manual, as he claimed? Certainly-but intelligence is no guarantee against human error. Could the images have been construed as talking down to the user? Perhaps-but in my experience, sophisticated users seldom respond that way. Rather, most of them seem to understand the value that these images bring to the table. Perhaps it's because most of them know what it's like to be frazzled and pressed for time, and how easily important details can be lost in the text.

So remember-a picture paints a thousand words, and a single screen capture can be worth more than a dozen pages of text. It's a lesson that's worth learning.

V. Berba Velasco has a doctorate in Electrical Engineering and has been practicing his trade for nearly a decade. During that time, he has repeatedly found that good technical writing skills are almost as critical as good engineering skills. Dr. Velasco currently works as a senior electrical and software engineer for Cellular Technology Limited (http://www.immunospot.com), a biotech company in Cleveland, Ohio.

move in cleaning service Morton Grove ...

In The News:

Uber teen accounts now feature live video streaming from the driver's camera, but encrypted recordings stay on Uber's servers for up to 14 days.

Router firewalls and software firewalls serve different roles in protecting your home Wi-Fi from unwanted traffic and suspicious connections.

A Chrome extension with 70,000 users and a 4.7-star rating began injecting fake update warnings after a threat actor acquired and weaponized it.

Amazon's Alexa+ rolls out free to Fire TV devices across the U.S., but hands-free microphones and stored voice data raise key privacy questions.

Meta's new teen accounts settlement sets a default two-hour daily limit on Instagram and Facebook, plus night mode and school mode restrictions.

The CareCloud data breach exposed Social Security numbers, banking information and medical records belonging to more than 3.75 million people.

Waymo reveals its custom 5-nanometer chip and dual computing systems designed to take over instantly if the robotaxi's primary computer fails.

Identity theft now includes account takeover, phone hijacking and payment card exposure. Here's what to look for in identity theft protection services.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

The FBI and Justice Department seized domains tied to QScan and QTRouter, tools allegedly used by China-linked hackers to breach NASA and other agencies.

Uber Eats drone delivery launches later this year through a Zipline partnership, starting in Dallas and Houston with a goal of one million daily flights.

Medicare Open Enrollment scams start with data broker targeting months before October. Learn why August is the time to remove your personal info.

The World Humanoid Robot Games' crashes show how far the technology still needs to go to be useful, "Survivor" reality TV star and robotics scientist Christian Hubicki says.

X-Humanoid's TianGong Ultra ran 100 meters in 9.32 seconds at Beijing's World Humanoid Robot Games, beating last year's winner by more than half.

A tap-to-pay charity scam is turning small $15 or $20 donations into charges of nearly $5,000, with victims losing thousands before they notice.

Kurt Knutsson shares seven emergency preparedness lessons from surviving Hurricane Katrina inside a New Orleans hotel as conditions turned desperate.

A contractor stored credentials in a Google Doc set to "Anyone with the link," and Google Search autocomplete eventually surfaced the password string.

New Orleans 911 uses Carbyne AI to triage repeat auto crash calls, but strict limits keep human call-takers in control of all other emergencies.

A single card skimmer can generate $1 million in stolen funds, and Secret Service video shows criminals installing them in under two seconds.

ChatGPT, Meta AI and Google now use memory, connected apps and past chats to personalize ads and responses in ways most users overlook today.

MagicalAuth by Glide.id uses cryptographic SIM credentials to verify bank logins without sending SMS OTP codes that scammers can intercept or phish.

A humanoid robot named Lightning Bolt ran 100 meters in 9.39 seconds at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, edging Usain Bolt's record.

An AI agent using Claude AI canceled another person's gym booking after finding a security flaw in the reservation system's authorization checks.

Trump signed a memorandum allowing vetted private U.S. companies to conduct cyber operations against foreign criminal organizations under oversight.

Your Social Security number appeared in a breach, but exposure and identity theft are not the same. Here's how identity restoration actually works.

The Value of Adding Images to Technical Documentation

Writing