Presented on Animated GIFS in STC India, Pune Zip Conference 2017. Slide deck #stcindia2017

1. Animated GIFs
Sangeeta Raghu-Punnadi
STC Pune Zip Conference 2017
29-July-2017

4.  Animated GIFs contain a series of images or frames. These
frames are played in a sequence, and in a loop to create
motion.
 Widely used in marketing and social media.
 Bring your product documentation to life - using
animation!
What Are Animated GIFs?

5.  Documentation is too long to read.
 Static images do not convey all the information.
 Some concepts are difficult to explain.
 Videos are little difficult to capture.
Why Use Animated GIFs?

6.  Easier to create than videos.
 No audio required.
 Hosted similar to images.
 Plays continuously on the HTML page. No special
applications or plugins required to play the GIF.
 Easily gets user attention, as no user intervention is
required to play the GIFs.
 Control number of times the animated gif is played on the
HTML page.
Advantages of Using Animated GIFs

7. Where to Use Animated GIFs
Create mockups for new designs Release notes to show fixed
bugs
Demonstrate procedures and
workflows
Prototype for a video
What’s New capabilities

8.  Free Tools:
 ScreenToGif
 LiceCAP
 Licensed:
 Snagit 13
 Camtasia
 Photoshop
What Tools to Use?

9.  Recommended to make short GIFs ~10-12 seconds
 Standardize parameters such as, frame speed of recording, image size, fade
out, and so on
 Check the size of the GIFs
 Work with your Localization team
Best Practices

10.  Demonstrate short steps in complex procedures/workflows in
Procedure/Concept/Reference topics.
 Landing pages of Help Centers. Most help centers use static images.
Animated GIF can display an important functionality of the product/module.
Where To Start?

11.  Mailchimp
Examples

12.  Microsoft Azure
Examples

13. *All images used in this presentation were sourced from the world wide web and used only for an educational purpose.