Visually Appealing Documents Combine Text with Images

A few years ago, I was scouring magazines to get ideas for quick reference guide layouts. In particular, I found that WIRED magazine has some of the most creative and engaging layouts, often with text laid out in three or four columns, or along the side of a graphic, or in various quadrants about the page.

I was trying to figure out the right layouts that would give my quick reference guides the same eye-popping appeal when I realized something: Almost all magazine layouts have a dominant image that the content revolves around. Without the image, no matter what you do with the text, no matter how you lay it out, your design won’t jump out at the reader. To make an attractive quick reference guide, you need a strong image.

In many cases, that image might just be a screenshot with some callouts around it. That is probably the easiest approach for technical writers. But if you have some Illustrator or Photoshop skills, you can go beyond the simple screenshot and create a concept diagram or other illustration.

Neglecting images is one of the most common missteps in tech comm. We rely entirely too much on words. And while I enjoy writing, I’m also trying to become more visual savvy — because I know that words combined with images result in incredibly appealing documents. And by images I don’t just mean a series of screenshots. We all know what those kinds of manuals look like — the ones with a screenshot after each step.

Leveraging images to illustrate concepts provides a refreshing experience for the user. To see concepts illustrated in graphics, or in other words, to see an idea, engages us. That’s really the appeal of the visual, especially the infographic — not just to have some eye candy, or to see a screen, but to see an idea.

Too often we dismiss our visual endeavors because we aren’t comfortable in making graphics. But I’ve come to learn that executing a mediocre graphic isn’t tough. What’s tough is coming up with the right way to illustrate an idea. It’s hard to find a way to depict an abstract idea in a concrete, visual way.

Even if you work with a graphic designer, often the graphic designer will ask you what you want him or her to draw. You will still probably have to do the work of visual imagination, sketching out how an idea might be illustrated. But here’s the redeeming quality: coming up with these idea sketches is incredible fun. It’s challenging and creatively fulfilling at the same time. In a lot of cases, the illustration doesn’t need to be too technical to convey a message. The simpler and less ink, the better.

Here are a few one-page quick reference guides I’ve been working on lately. Notice that they combine text with images.

Each guide has a strong image, and then a few columns of text. That’s all.  The images aren’t necessarily eye-popping (like with images in a magazine), and two images are just stylized screens. But in general, the combination of text with images creates more appealing documents.

No doubt writers shy away from images for a variety of reasons, especially when text requires translation. If the images have embedded text, they can’t be translated. One “easy” solution might be to make wordless images. However, removing all words from an image cripples the instructional power of the image. It draws the reader to look at the image, but because the image doesn’t have a strong message to communicate (not having any words), it leaves the reader with a blank message. Or the image merely becomes decorative.

One way to get around this is to create your images in Illustrator (or some other graphics program), and then place the images in your InDesign file. Then create text boxes in InDesign and overlay the text boxes on the image. Then group the text boxes and the image. If you have have some advanced translation experts, who know how to export from InDesign to XML and then import again when it’s translated, it’s a technique that will work. If your output is online, you could implement the same strategy by making the image a background image, and positioning the text with CSS.

Incorporating images into technical documentation poses challenges, for sure. Not only is it hard to visually depict an abstract idea, you have to also be familiar with graphics tools to execute the idea, and then you may need to handle translation as well. Still, despite the hassle, the end product will be much more enticing to readers if you include images.

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11 thoughts on “Visually Appealing Documents Combine Text with Images”

  1. Julio Vazquez (@juliov27612)

    Welcome back, Tom!

    Nice post. I agree that judicious use of images does enhance any information and I especially like the samples you provide. (I will admit that I am puzzled about what I see in the Administrator’s Reference Guide).

    Another thing you can do if you’re concerned about translation is to use SVG images rather than raster images. SVG is an XML format that defines the image and the text becomes content of an XML element so it’s easily translatable.

    Of course, there’s still the balancing act of defining what those images should be early enough in the writing process so that the images are ready in time for review or publication. With ever-shortening schedules, that become more of a challenge than having the imagination to create an appropriate image.

    1. Tom Johnson Post author

      Julio, thanks for the tip about SVG images. I wasn’t aware of that.

      Re the admin guide, you mentioned that you’re puzzled. Is it because it mainly shows buildings? If so, that’s because that’s one of the main functions that admins do (set up building information), but it may be somewhat lopsided, because they do more than that.

  2. Oana

    Nice post Tom. It is true “a picture is worth 1000 words”. I like the examples you illustrated. InDesign is excellent to create this type of layout. What would you do if the customer constrains you to use specific layout templates (templates that don’t allow creating visual appealing documents)?

    Looking forward to see the response!

    @Julio: Useful info related to SVG images. Thanks!

  3. John Tait

    It looks like STOP, the 1965 Hughes Aircraft method.

    Those guys were half a century ahead of their time.

  5. Cindy at Rosehaven Cottage

    Excellent post and excellent points! Of course, being a graphic artist makes me a bit biased because I think everything is communicated better with the perfect marriage of images and text. Loved seeing the quick ref guides you’re currently working on.

    1. Tom Johnson Post author

      Thanks Cindy. My graphics abilities are pretty rudimentary. I attended a conference session in infographics today, led by a designer, and it made me realize that I don’t have that designer’s eye that others seem to have. But I guess some attempt is better than no attempt at all.

  6. Jennifer O Neill

    I work for a manufacturing copmany and we’ve sometimes done some very visual printed quick guides. Many unfortunately soon failed and got dropped by management.

    We’re a global company that sells worldwide, operating in 20+ languages. There were some common reasons why these visual guides sadly failed and they were largely for commercial reasons:

    - No planning for the impact of translation.
    Where does the expanded text go that so often comes when you translate text? The tech writers often didn’t plan for this when designing the original English manual. The expanded translated text would move on to the next page, ruining the layout of the next section.

    Or they simply said that the English would be printed and that the translated versions of the quick guide could go on the CD with the user manuals. Once that quick guide hit Europe to be localised, management would say a big NO! Most of our European customers don’t work in English and also need quick setup info when they open the box. Multilingual quick guides would then be requested, which would destroy the original visual design of the guide. Suddenly a multilingual quick guide would have to be put together at the localisation stage.

    - No planning for the printing cost of worldwide distribution.
    It’s often expensive to print such manuals as they use heavier paper, colour, special page size, perhaps spiral bindings… For many companies it’s too expensive to do it across several languages.

    Each of our visual quick guides looked great, clearly & simply explained the info with many pictures and less text but failed to consider the cost impact of distributing the printed guides to the users worldwide. The writers never planned (ie, considered) for the worldwide distribution cost across several languages.

    Love them or loth them, multilingual quick guides are a commercial reality. But so often they don’t get the care they need from tech writers who often just focus on the English only side. And many writers don’t think about the cost element of their work.

    Here’s my blog on multilingual manuals if you’d like more info on this doc type: http://www.stc-europe.org/tag/multilingual/

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