B&W or Colour

[Leslie McKendry-Smith <McKendrySmith -at- MBNET -dot- MB -dot- CA>]

My client and I are on " the horns of a dilemma" and need
advice on whether or not to print a user's guide in colour
or B&W.

Here's the situation...

I have written a user's guide for a remote control and
monitoring application that runs in Window.  The manual
contains screen snapshots of each window and dialog box as
well as examples of the application's tool icons.

The developers used colour in the interface to reinforce
messages. For example, the background of a high priority
alarm message would be red.  Colour is also used to show
whether or not a remote device is connected to the network.

Now the problem...

My client is toying with the idea of print the entire manual
in colour (Cost is not an issue.) but, both of us are unsure
of whether this is a good idea.

On the positive side, I think that colour printing would
demonstrate how colour is used to in the application.

On the negative side, I worry that page after page of colour
graphics would distract readers and after a while lose its
impact.

What do you think?  Are there other advantages or
disadvantages?  Does anyone know of any usability research
results on using colour in user's guides.

I subscribe to the digest version, so I'd appreciate it if
you responded directly to me.  I'd be happy to post a
summary of responses later next week.

Thanks,

Leslie McKendry-Smith


______________________________________________
Leslie McKendry-Smith     mckendry -at- mbnet -dot- mb -dot- ca
Documents OnLine Technical Writing Services
http://www.mbnet.mb.ca/~mckendry/doconlin/

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