|
|
Laying out a great looking
CD-ROM: 7 tips to increase usability
Don’t you just hate popping a CD into your
drive and having to guess what to do next? Yeah,
thought so!
As a software/multimedia developer your aim is to
educate and/or entertain your users, so giving them
a CD which takes them straight into your content
will only enhance their user experience. Here are
a few ideas to think about before mailing your master
disc to us:
1. Does the CD autorun?
The vast majority of Windows users expect their
discs to autorun, so why disappoint them? Make the
CD autorun the way you want by popping a simple
text file, called autorun.inf, into the root directory
of your disc. See How
to create an autorun CD for further info.
2. Have you assigned an electronic volume
label to the disc?
Many CD authors overlook this, so when users navigate
their PCs using Explorer they can see that a CD
is in the drive, but the text next to it says ‘New’
or maybe something like ‘130982_01’
– not very descriptive! Set the volume label
using your burning software, or try using the
‘label’ command inside the autorun.inf
file.
3. Do the CD and main executable file have
their own icons?
Replace the default CD icon – the one you
see when viewing the disc in Explorer – with
something more appropriate, your logo or a small
graphic for example. Grab a free icon from the Internet
or use one of the available free icon editors to
create your own and use the
‘icon’ command inside the autorun.inf
file to assign it to the CD. Also, you can assign
the same icon to the main executable file when compiling,
or if that’s not possible, use a program like
Resource
Hacker to add it afterwards.
4. Is the root directory free of clutter?
People don’t want to be confronted with
a choice of files to click, so make the choice
for them and only leave the most important one
in the root directory (along with your autorun
file of course!). Maybe give the file a name such
as ‘start’ or ‘run’ to
make it obvious, and move all the other files
into sub-folders.
5. Do the sub-folders and files have real
names?
By giving folders and files human-readable names
it allows your users to navigate around the CD
and locate documents and images outside of your
software or presentation.
6. Have you removed all unnecessary files
from the CD?
When creating your master disc be sure not to
include unnecessary files, images or templates.
As well as a clean file structure, it prevents
you giving away source code and any half-completed,
unused ideas!
7. Is the CD to be used on PC and Mac?
If the disc is to run on both platforms make it
a true hybrid CD,
so there are dedicated PC and Mac areas to the disc
with any files common to both sides being shared.
This way you can hide the PC files from the Mac
and vice-versa, making for a cleaner disc.
Follow these tips and you’ll end up with
an easy to use and professional looking CD.
|
|
|
|
|
