atw: Re: The user guide from hell
- From: Bill Parker <bill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2012 20:29:07 +0800
I'll try that again... even one close up WOULD have helped ME tell the
difference between a dowel and a SCREW. I should apply for a job with IKEA!
On 02/03/2012, at 12:59 PM, Bill Parker wrote:
> My vote goes the "Swedish" shop owned by Dutch interests. Not so much words
> as diagrams - even one close up have helped tell the difference between a
> dowel and a screen.
>
> Bill
> On 02/03/2012, at 6:32 AM, Kath Bowman wrote:
>
>> The worst user manual I came across was for a digital video recorder. All
>> through the instructions, it kept telling me what to do if things did not
>> work as expected. It was hard going, and each task took several pages to
>> describe. It was full of “If this happens…” followed by “If that happens…”
>> There were no simple steps to follow to do a task. I didn’t encounter any of
>> the problems they described. They should have used simple step-based
>> procedures, followed by trouble-shooting sections.
>> However, the recorder was as badly designed as the manual, and I got rid of
>> the recorder (and the manual) after a while.
>> Cheers
>> Kath
>>
>> From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Howard Silcock
>> Sent: Thursday, 1 March 2012 10:38 AM
>> To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: atw: The user guide from hell
>>
>> It occurred to me (while looking at the online user guide provided for our
>> phone system and thinking about others that I've seen for home appliances)
>> that it might be an interesting and instructive exercise to come up with the
>> attributes of a 'user guide from hell'.
>>
>> Some that occur to me immediately are:
>>
>> It applies to a number of different models, which are distinguished only by
>> a very hard-to-find identifier on the product or its packaging, and which
>> have quite different configurations. Pictures (and all the most useful
>> features) all relate to one of the models you don't have.
>> It contains text in a very large number of languages. The English version is
>> somewhere right in the middle and appears to be much shorter than many of
>> the others. It's written by someone with very little knowledge of English.
>> Most of the text consists of warnings against using the product in the most
>> bizarre ways (like the user guide for an iron which warned against ironing
>> clothes while you're wearing them) and is clearly there only to guard
>> against lawsuits.
>> Other topics given prominence are congratulations on buying the product and
>> promotions for other products.
>> Instructions are grouped under headings that presumably make sense to the
>> manufacturers but are meaningless to the users and often use jargon (e.g.
>> 'Softkey Definitions' - most users would have no idea what a 'softkey' is -
>> or 'Utilities' or 'Advanced Topics'). There's no index or table of contents.
>> Alternatively (or in addition) there's a picture of the product with a large
>> number of numbered callouts and the only instructions are listed in the key
>> to the callouts.
>> There are references to other publications from a website. That website
>> doesn't exist.
>> Any other suggestions?
>>
>> Howard
>>
>
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