Re: Demonstrating Click and Drag Selection on Paper

[Kat Nagel <katnagel -at- EZNET -dot- NET>]

>I'm documenting a very complex software application adjunct to a
medical
>device for use by surgeons who I'm told "may never have used a
computer of
>an kind before and certainly are not technologically sophisticated."
> [snip] The list, information tree, etc. are easy enough -- but how
do I
>demonstrate click and drag on paper?

This situation cries out for a "Basic Computer Techniques" section in
your manual.  I did something like thin in a task manual for a church
that had an ever-changing squad of volunteers doing updates to their
mailing lists and contributions database.

In the Basic Techniques section, I explained click and drag in four
illustrated frames.
------------------------------------------------------
Frame1

A pile of document                              A trash can over here
icons over here

                         Hand on mouse
                         down here with
                         cursor floating
                         in the blank space above


------------------------------------------------------
Frame2

Pile of doc icons                               A trash can over here
with top icon highlighted
and cursor touching it


            Hand on mouse here
            showing button depressed



------------------------------------------------------
Frame 3

Shorter pile                 Highlighted doc                Trash can
of doc icons                 icon with cursor


                             Hand on mouse/
                             Button depressed


------------------------------------------------------
Frame4

Short pile                                      Highlighted doc icon
                                                with cursor touching
                                               highlighted trash can


                                                  Hand letting go
                                                  of mouse

------------------------------------------------------

Since most of these particular volunteers were little old retired
guys
(who lost jobs because they were 'replaced by damned machines') or
elderly wives who needed to get out of the house because the little
old retired guys were driving them crazy, I needed to overcome their
discomfort with computers.  So...
I also gave them a disk of shareware games labeled "Mouse Practice"
(carefully chosen so that they -did- require mouse use and not
joysticks or keyboard commands, of course) and put a paragraph in
the manual saying that volunteers unfamiliar with using the mouse
should spend at least 15 minutes practicing  before going to the
next level of the tutorial.

It worked pretty well.  Last time I was there, they were still using
the same computer and manual (after 10 years!), and the new
volunteers
were doing their Mouse Practice exercises.

K@
katnagel                        @eznet.net (-spaces)
Kat Nagel,            MasterWork Consulting Services
Technical writing | Editing | Conversions | Webstuff

"The transformation of calories into words, of words into money,
 and of money into calories again are the three cycles in a
 freelance writer's metabolism."  /Mary Kittredge, _Poison Pen_


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