In end user documentation, should screenshots come before or after the text that references them?

Question

The end user documentation I'm writing makes use of screenshots (and partial screenshots) to show the user what I'm referring to in procedural instructions or conceptual explanations of the software.

However, I'm never quite sure whether to put the screenshot before the paragraph that refers to the screenshot or afterward. What is most readable? Furthermore, I'm not using figure captions. So, the problem might be that I have large sections of text referring to the screenshot at all. Maybe the caption should explain the screenshot and the text shouldn't directly refer to it.

What are some practices in technical writing that would help me here?

Answer 1

If a reader follows a reasonable path¹ through your documentation, there should never be a point where he's looking at something incomprehensible. This applies to text, code samples, diagrams...and screen shots. Therefore, unless the structure of your document itself provides this (e.g. through section titles and a consistent format, like in a catalogue), you should always have some explanatory text before the screen shot to provide context.

However, this principle applies to text too -- you don't want to have a page of text describing stuff that will only make sense after someone sees the screen shot, either. So in my experience the norm is: text that sets the stage, then the screen shot, then details that refer to the screen shot.

This is true with or without figure numbers and captions.

¹ At minimum (for non-reference doc), starting at the beginning and reading through. But also consider the case of someone who looks something up in the table of contents and jumps there, and, if applicable, the use of your documentation in online context-sensitive help.

Answer 2

1) Put the descriptive text first, then the screenshot immediately afterwards. We read down.

In the Print dialog box, click Export to PDF.
[SCREENSHOT of dialog box]

2) You may or may not need a caption, but you should at least label each screenshot. Fig. 1, Screen B, Ralph, something. That allows you to refer to it elsewhere in the text.

Answer 3

An introductory text should always come before the screenshot that you are about to display. This will help the user to get an idea of what is about to be displayed in the screenshot.

Then you can definitely provide the descriptive text for what exactly is happening in the screenshot for better understanding of the user.

Answer 4

Screenshots can also come to the right or left of text that references them. Using columns can improve readability and keep illustrations from being separated across pages from the text that references them.