User Manual Critique

User Manual Critique

User manuals are intended to help and guide a person on how to use a product or systems. For example, Photoshop's user manual shows new users or those looking to learn something new different techniques and how to move around it.

In this evaluation or critique of the Photoshop's user manual I will focus on these five criteria: organization, content, visual graphics or layout of the page, and efficiency of the manual.

Organization

The overall organization of the Photoshop's user manual is acceptable for an online user manual. From a judging eye, the first thing that this user manual is missing is a table of contents. The table of content will let the reader know what the user manual will be covering as this serves as a pre-reading part of the manual. Also, some readers just look for specific tasks and no time to read the whole manual.

The writer also uses the easiest to hardest organization method. This method helps novice Photoshopers to read a brief introduction to the menu bars, tool box, and option bars. Then slowly teaches the user how to save a document, how to open a file, saving it to the web, etc. When it comes to software user manuals starting from the easiest to the hardest part of the software is the best way to teach someone who has no idea where to start.

Content

The content or wording is clear and precise in the user manual. I did notice how the writer did not capitalize the bullet points and the majority of the heading. There were also a couple of misspelled words. The writer should have spell check the whole document before posting the manual online.

Visual Graphics

The graphics used in the user manual are easy to read and understand. The screen shots are in color and have arrows to show what each part of the screen is as in the example below taken from http://www.sitepoint.com/getting-started-photoshop/. One of the advantages of using a screen shot is that the user will be able to see how the program looks instead of just bits and pieces of the screen where it might confuse the user. A small problem that I can see from the website is that it does not have a zoom button for the user to amplify the image and see it clearer.

Efficiency

The whole manual is user friendly and explains in detail what each object on the Photoshop software is for and how to use it.