Using Graphic Art to Set the Tone in Operations Manuals
The use of graphics in technical writing and in operations manuals for businesses is very important. Often you can find some very decent clip art to assist you, but be very careful. You must make sure it is a good fit and sets the right tone. When using standard clip art you will find that unless you use the right graphic art you can cause the reader to miss the point.
You must remember how many people are going to be reading these manuals, and they will be bored and skim through the chapters. In other words, they will look at the headings and the bulleted lists, and the pictures, without doing a whole lot of reading. You can see why this is so critical.
If your graphic art work sets the wrong tone or gives the wrong impression to the reader they will misread the intent of each section of the manual. If the graphic artwork is too cartoonish it won’t send the right message, or it won’t establish the importance of the manual to the employees that are reading it.
This means they might be less likely to follow the manual, and you can see where this could lead to huge problems down the road. Operations manuals must be serious but at the same time they need graphics to break it up, otherwise it is too dry and too boring. If the technical writer, illustrator, copywriter, or graphic artist does not take these things seriously it could lead to litigation or workplace safety issues down the road. So, please consider all this.
Lance Winslow – Lance Winslow’s Bio. Lance Winslow is also Founder of the Car Wash Guys, a cool little Franchise Company; http://www.carwashguys.com/history/founder.html/.
Author: Lance Winslow
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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