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What Do You Look For In Screenshots?
_iris asks: "Most software creators offer screenshots of their software in action. Screenshots are also included in most 3rd party software reviews and previews. The screenshots are usually focused on the unique features of the program. When I am evaluating software, I am usually interested in how the software differs in the more mundane ways. I'm more interested in differences in the file open/save dialogs, what program presents to me when I first open it, how the help system is integrated into the system, etc. My reasoning is that if there is only one or two programs that accomplish my needs, it doesn't matter much how it works or what it looks like because I am stuck either using it or writing my own. Do you care about the unique features or do you care about the slight differences in the common features or do you focus on something else entirely?"
I thought the April Fools Day stories were done.
1) Music player with your favorite album
2) Anime background picture
3) Transparency
If I'm taking a quick first glance,the screenshot better show me something I can't get somewhere else for half the time or money. Or nice breasts.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Not an easy target, but a good one to aim for.
You are not the customer.
And I won't lie, I usually look for a functional and mature application. Maybe that means I'm ignoring potential applications. But I guess when I go to a website to see a screenshot, I want to know if its something that is mature enough that I can use. This is bad sometimes because you can't always tell the quality of an application from a screenshot.
Poor interfaces (esp if they do not follow the windows theme or use stupid eye candy) are a complete turn off to me and usually a GOOD indicator of the program's end value. I want LOTS of screenshots showing me each of the features. Perhaps a few screenshots in the actual review, and a link to a gallery with thumbnails of each of the shots and a link to a full resolution version.
At least for me, I like to see the whole screen in at least one of the shots. I'm not sure why, but it seems to convey some kind of honesty to me.
See the MythTV site to see a good idea of how screenshots can help someone evaluate a product
* Clean design * Clear workflow * Easy access to common features * Wow factor (note that it's last on the list) More screenshots is better, particularly if we're talking about a large download, or a big application. A walk-thru tutorial of a typical use-case is even better.
MakePassword.com Mp3 Blog
Or Ponies!!!!
The screenshots for an application should be self describing. If the screenshots can clearly show what features an application has then it is a good indication that the user interface is well designed, and that the focus of the program was usability and not 'cool looking widgets'. If you find that you have to describe what a screenshot is showing, then something is wrong.
On another note, did anyone else spend 5 minutes trying to find out where the 'file open' dialog was in WMP (our office is XP only, and yes it was pr0n).
Bank account numbers and cleartext passwords. Sadly I am often disappointed, so maybe you could include more of those?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Good, consistent lighting - does everything cast a shadow? do characters have self shadowing? Does everything have a stupid lens bloom (the new lens flare), Any SH or PRT support? Realtime SSS?
Good view - Good framing, something interesting going on.
Next gen tech - do objects have motion blur? skinned characters/objects too? Does the engine support soft particles? Does it look like things clip through one another? What is the view distance like? How does the engine appear to handle fog/distance fog? Refraction?
Characters - How is the weighting? How do the faces look? Are the poses/animation realistic? Are the feet oriented to the ground normal?
Art - Do the assets share the same basic (consistent) texel resolution? Are the proportions right? Is everything normal mapped? Are the models as high resolution as they can be for the given platform? (Was this a game ported from a weaker primary platform, or was it built top down and rez'd to match secs)
There's a lot more, but I am tired. What do you look for in game screens?
Screenshots should clearly demonstrate crucial features of the software, as I often jump to the gallery when I want to quickly find out if a prospective app does what I need (since textual documentation is either inexistent or written by a bullshitting yes-man). If the sole purpose of the screenshot is to demonstrate the developer's funky desktop or some dumb hobag of a model, it's a waste of bandwidth. Screenshots are kind of like an auto showroom.. I don't go to car dealers for "entertainment", I go there to buy a car and see it up close before I make my choice.
It's also quite nice to have a video or slideshow demonstrating the actual behavior of the software. You could look at thousands of Mac OSX screenshots, ok it's pretty but nothing special. Then you look at a full-motion video that shows how everything zooms, stretches and morphs with perfectly fluid movement, and you're wowed.
In any case, nothing compares to actually trying out the software and seeing how easy it is to operate.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I look for pics of hot girls. I find it funny that most desktop screenshots have some semi-nude girl as the wallpaper. Obviously good software should come pre-installed with nudie pics.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
...a clean default interface. If its Windows or Mac software, it
:D
should use the current default for that system. One of the things
I've always hated about WinAMP, Quicktime, etc, is all the flash
and eyecandy they wrap their stuff in.
I also want to know things like what's the memory footprint of the
program (approximately), how it deals with SMP and dual core systems
and what bizarre external dependencies it has. Of course, those
aren't really screenshot items.
404 Error:
If a screenshot is meant to show a specific window's layout or functionality, I want to see it with the rest of the application behind it. It's part of giving me a feel for how it works. I am not interested in seeing closeups of a specific part, but rather a full, high resolution screen shot of the desktop with whatever part of the application is being shown running in the foreground.
Ponies. Lots and lots of ponies. Preferrably pink. If I can't say, "OMG! Ponies!" it doesn't matter what else the screenshot shows, it's lost me.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
I'm more interested in differences in the file open/save dialogs, what program presents to me when I first open it, how the help system is integrated into the system, etc. My reasoning is that if there is only one or two programs that accomplish my needs, it doesn't matter much how it works or what it looks like because I am stuck either using it or writing my own.
So, if how a program works is not what you look for in a review, what are you looking for? Is it still April Fools in here? Now for a straight answer, because the subject is actually worth talking about.
Divide and conquer. Everything has it's place and it's better to reference non core items. Know your focus and stick to it and you won't waste the reader's time.
The submitter throws out a number of examples. Open/save dialogs are unique features of meta projects like Gnome and KDE. I'm very interested in how those work when I'm looking at a new window or file manager. KDE sockets have support for samba, sftp, ftp, http, audiocd and more, how cool is that? Screen shots of those are impressive and can be found at KDE's site. When reviewing a media player, lyric fetching, cover management or list generation are how the program works and what's important. It's nice to know that the media player works with the system's underlying file manager and you can get your files by sftp, but you can just say so and link back to the KDE screenshots. The same can be said about skins, which may add character or distract depending on what program you are talking about.
I teach a Linux Class to newbies, so this is something I have to consider often. I only want to teach the important parts of each program and have to be careful about the screenshots used for step by step instruction. Attention spans are limited, so I have to be picky and well organized while I try to cram as much as I can into each class. When teaching, I have to ask myself how I use the program and what I like about it. I'll often show only a region of a program so that it stands out. The result is a very select series of images which show off the strengths of the program. People are not interested in weaknesses. If a program has a weakness in a peripheral function, no one cares. If the weakness is in core function, I won't be teaching with it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If that doesn't help, I look at the full-screen terminal applications (which can and should have screenshots), and as a last resort, the GUI applications.
For non-visual software, the man page is a good indication of quality. A sensible set of command-line options, correct grammar, formatting et cetera probably means the program doesn't suck.
I've seen screenshots that are a smaller resolution than the screen capture they represent! Some eejit has scaled the screenshot before uploading it. If a screenshot isnt 1:1 pixels on your screen as on the author's screen then you are going to lose something somewhere.
I once put up a screenshot of an app I wrote and told my colleague where to find it. He said the text wasn't readable. Huh? I re-uploaded it again. Still not readable. Eventually I taught him how to do a screen capture in Windows and mail me that so I could see what was going on. That was when I discovered Internet Explorer shrunk images to fit the browser window. At the time Mozilla didn't do that (you got scroll bars). Now I try to remember to wrap screenshots in a little HTML so that they show at the right size.
I look for an open IRC window in which the person recording the snapshot tells all the channel participants to "Say Cheese". :)