When I first thought to write this article, I thought it was brilliant and innovative – until a quick Google search showed me a handful of articles that have been published this fall about the very same thing. Hmpf. I suppose that makes me an early adopter and not an innovator, and I should probably be okay with that.
Speaking of Google, it was their Chrome comic that got me started. I’ve yet to use Chrome (I’m still using Internet Exploder, for the simple reason that I’m too lazy to migrate to the much-superior Firefox) but it sure was fun learning about where it came from. Now, I’m geekier than most, but I probably wouldn’t have sat down to read a general white paper about the latest toy from Google. But read a comic from Google? Well, sure.
That’s not the only place that the comic book format has been a useful form of technical communication. Earlier this summer, our chapter’s own Rahel Bailie wrote an article about her work with the Legal Services Society to create a comic book to educate First Nations groups about family violence and the legal system. The project had to account for the fact that studies cite literacy levels in First Nations communities as being lower than in the general population. The comic book format was ideal, as it conveyed what could have been intimidating information, but in an approachable way.
Even Kevin Cheng, who created online comic OK/Cancel in 2003, has been snapped up by Rosenfeld Media (a small publishing company specializing in user experience design) to write a book about comics as a communication tool.
Considering that 90% of people are visual learners, it should be no surprise that the comic book format can be a really effective communication tool. Comics are naturally concise: the information is packaged into speech bubbles, the speech bubbles into a panel, and the panel into a strip. It’s a great way to transmit information in small, manageable chunks – and most people are likely to read a comic because it’s more fun to read than a page swimming in text.
That’s not to say that we should all quit our day jobs and start writing graphic novel user manuals. Unless you’ve got a great labeling or tabbing system, it can be hard to locate specific concepts or facts. And while the comic book format might be appropriate in some cases (for example, the US Army used a comic book to train recruits on how to use a rifle), it might not be appropriate in situations where information needs to be accessed quickly (for example, how to shut down a nuclear warhead).
Let’s just hope that the use of comics as technical communication tools doesn’t legitimize the use of Comic Sans Serif.
