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Re: Post Holiday Reality

Subject: Re: Post Holiday Reality
From: "Margaret A. Smith" <msmith -at- aros -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 12:14:09 -0700


So, how many of you endure your family's chuckles at holidays or birthdays
where "techie" gifts are given, and the manuals are untouched? Do family and
friends wonder why you do what you do for a living?


I've been in the same situation time and again. Why *do* we need to defend providing information? On one hand, I'm glad that a few products have adequate user interfaces that enable instant use. That's how things should be, particularly "techie" items.

But even the chucklers won't convince me that our manuals are forever doomed to non-use. Sooner or later, even (especially?) the techie users will want to make the product do more than what is intuitively obvious by the interface. Or, they screw up and "break" something and need to set things right. Or, like some of us, a few actually prefer to glance at the instructions first. Imagine the complaints and phone calls if a company didn't at least provide a diagram of battery sizes and orientation? (In your example.)

The nailbiter is when someone takes you up on using the manual and you're left praying to the gods that the writer actually included that information, preferably with a useful index to find it.

Peg Smith



Margaret (Peg) Smith
Abet Information Design
Phone: 801.583.1858


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