Reading demands concentration and work; looking at images is fun. –Jan WhiteDifferent types of information lend themselves to different methods of presentation. By using the most appropriate method of presentation, you can often make the work of finding information easier for your readers.
Information is most commonly presented in narrative text form. Although narrative text—the standard prose of which paragraphs are composed—forms most of what we read and is a necessary part of manuals, it’s more difficult to scan for information than some other presentation methods.
Some alternatives to narrative text are:
Manuals often use a variety of these presentation methods. The result, instead of narrative text, is termed structured text. When we prepare manuals, we should think of ourselves as communicators, not writers.
