GIFs
GIFs enhance UI instructions by visually demonstrating steps. Use them sparingly, ensuring they are concise, accessible, and complement text without replacing essential information.
You can use an animated GIF to show steps in a UI. Use an animated GIF to supplement task information or paragraph text. Don't remove essential text in favor of a GIF.
Before you create a GIF
Before you include a GIF in your documentation, review Best practices for including images.
Keep GIFs as concise as possible, and use them only when they are meaningful to your content. Consider these challenges of GIFs before using them in documentation:
- GIFs are more difficult to maintain and more visually distracting than screenshots. If the UI changes, you must also create a new GIF in order to keep the content up to date.
- GIFs have accessibility issues because they don't give readers the ability to pause, rewind, or skip forward.
- It can be difficult to write meaningful alt text for moving sequences.
- GIFs aren't useful in PDF format and can contribute to a negative reading experience if you expect customers to frequently download your documentation for security purposes.
Requirements
Ensure your GIF meets these guidelines:
- No voiceover is required.
- No complex annotations are required.
- The duration is no more than 20 seconds.
- It doesn't need the ability to pause, rewind, or skip forward.
- It doesn't show multiple complex steps in a task.
If what you want to demonstrate requires a voiceover, is longer than 20 seconds in duration, or needs the ability to pause or skip ahead, use a video instead. See Best practices for including videos.