Leave reading time after a narrated label appears
For ordered-time narrated visuals, avoid new motion or reveals during label-reading intervals on dynamic displays to improve readability and mitigate missed labels for viewers learning unfamiliar terms.
- purpose:refine
- basis:empirical
- time:ordered-time
- temporal-pattern:dynamic
- quality:readability:use
- lever:text-annotation
- component:label:use
advice
Hold the screen for label reading
Keep the display stable long enough for viewers to read a cued label. For example, reveal the label when narration names it, then delay the next reveal or animation until that label can be read.
reason
Why label reading time matters
A label competes badly with a new motion event. If animation starts while the viewer is trying to read the named label, attention shifts away before the object-label link is formed.
Mechanism: A spoken label cue creates a short interval when viewers need to read and connect the label to the object. New motion or reveals in that same interval pull attention away.
Evidence: The paper recommends allowing reading time after cueing a label and avoiding reveals or animation during the speech segment that cues it; in the studied sequence, rapid motion and competing animation caused some labels or actions to be missed (Faraday & Sutcliffe, 1997).
context
Use when labels introduce unfamiliar terms
- User Goal: Read and retain the name of an on-screen object during a process explanation.
- Data: The display introduces new labels over time.
- Chart Setting: A narrated dynamic display could start another reveal or animation immediately after a label appears.
- Audience: Viewers may not already know the terminology.
- Success Criterion: Viewers can read the label and connect it to the right object before the next step begins.
exceptions
Do not add a pause when there is no new label to read
Break it when: No newly cued label appears in that interval. Why: This recommendation is specifically about the reading window created when narration introduces a label.
costs
What reading time costs
Sacrifice: You give up some pace. Risk: The sequence can feel slower if every step pauses equally. Mitigation: Reserve the pause for labels and terms that viewers must identify.
mistakes
Common label-timing misuse
Mistake: Starting a new animation as soon as a label appears. Why it fails: Attention shifts to the motion before the label is read.
check
How to test label timing
Failure Sign: Viewers remember the moving event but cannot name the labeled item. Quick Check: For each spoken label, check whether another reveal or animation starts before the cue finishes. Stronger Test: Show the segment once and ask viewers to name the labeled item immediately afterward.
fix
What to change
- Delay the next animation until the label cue finishes.
- Keep the labeled object and its label stable during the spoken term.
- Slow or pause a moving element that would otherwise compete with the label.
- Remove overlapping reveals from the same interval.