In his talk during last year’s Business of Software conference, Don Norman mentioned the practical use of mock-ups when you’re designing a user interface.
And unsurprisingly, this also works the other way round when you’re explaining a UI.
The folks at Universal Publishing Production Music obviously didn’t know or think so. They sent an email with 17 paragraphs explaining the menus and structure of their soon-to-be-launched new website, purely verbal. I understand that you might leave away the images when you ship the manual with the software (as the Cupertino guys do), because it’s there, on screen.
But when it’s neither on screen nor in the manual, none of both is of any use, is it?