Riktlinjer för utformning av manualbilder till Volvo Construction Equipment : En studie av riktlinjer kring utformning av processuella instruktionsbilder

Sammanfattning: At Volvo Construction Equipment outside Eskilstuna a wide range of heavy equipment machines are developed that are used by a variety of industries worldwide. For the handling and maintenance of these machines a deep knowledge is often required. Volvo CE and their dealer Swecon offer courses for both drivers and technicians that last for 1-2 weeks. Out on the workplaces however, the knowledge from these courses need to be supplemented with information from the machine’s operator and repair manuals. At the Service Engineering Department where these manuals are produced they have clear rules on how the text should be composed, but no similar rules for the descriptive images. The purposes of this thesis is that by producing a number of pictures, and carefully study the process of producing them, lay a foundation for a set of guidelines on how images for the manuals should be designed in the future. The pre-study consisted of qualitative interviews to create an understanding of the features I was going to describe and to evaluate the current manual pictures. I then, through a qualitative text study, collected theories on how images of this type should be designed. Then I designed the images for the drivers’ and technicians’ manuals based on the conclusions drawn from my pre-studies. Finally I conducted a trial of the produced images with members from each target group as test subjects through interviews. The conclusions drawn from the pre-studies, the design process and the trial resulted in two different sets of guidelines; one for each manual. The technicians’ manual: 1. Maintain only a high enough level of detail in the images. 2. Consider color blindness when color-coding images. 3. Plot overview images in simple schematic drawing with each part in their approximate location compared to reality. 4. Draw machine parts and components from the angle that gives the maximum recognition factor and displays all its essential elements. 5. Use different line weights to strengthen the forms and not to draw focus to certain areas. The operators’ manual: 1. Keep a low level of detail in the images 2. Use different line weights and black arrows where you want to draw attention in an image. 3. When a motion shall be described, list every moments of it and use only the most essential ones. 4. Take advantage of the gray scale to describe areas and motions to make the images less cluttered and keep blacks down. 5. Draw images straight from the sides in case of movement descriptions perpendicular to the direction of the motion. 6. Always describe the ideal case of an action. 7. Only use "do-not-images" with a cross over to wean and prevent already learned incorrect behavior or to warn of situations that might be harmful to the machines and people.