Words that Work

Screen captures are seldom self-explanatory so the question then becomes: What’s the best way to explain the capture? There are many choices, from a lot of text to none at all, but a common one is the numbered callout:

The problem with this type of callout is that the reader is required to switch back and forth between the image and the legend, which is even more distracting when the legend is on a different page to the image. Following instructions related to the image can be a bit of a nightmare… wait a minute? Which bit is that?

Numbered callouts are often chosen to reduce translation costs. It doesn’t have to be that way, but that’s a topic for another day.

Text callouts are great because the info the user needs about the capture is right there with the capture:

The temptation is to explain everything:

A temptation that must be resisted, for the sake of your users. Limit the callouts to the fields the user is going to need for the task at hand. If you can crop the screen capture without losing context, even better:

I’ve deliberately used a screen that needs no callouts as an example in order to illustrate the best way to explain what’s on the screen: the screen itself. Concise, descriptive field names, proper choice of controls and positioning on and in relation to other screen elements go a long way to making a screen easy to use. But when callouts are necessary, always think about how the reader will be viewing the help and put as much information right before their eyes as you can, limiting the information to what’s relevant to the task at hand.

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