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Re: "The rest of the story" (WAS: another twist for instructions)
Subject:Re: "The rest of the story" (WAS: another twist for instructions) From:Jo Francis Byrd <jbyrd -at- byrdwrites -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 15 Mar 2001 10:13:44 -0600
Most of us have been plagued by instructions which, had they had any usability testing, would have failed miserably.
This past summer I bought my husband a smoker grill. Assembling it was a...um...challenge. Accompanied by unseemly language. My dearly beloved LOVES directions (as opposed to yours truly who is the read-the-directions-when-all-else-fails type), and they drove us both nuts; had things out of sequence, didn't tell you to do something at all..... As noted below, it
had the earmark of instructions written by someone who knew exactly what to do, could do it in his (or her) sleep, backwards and sideways.
I thought about writing them about their appalling instructions, and I should have, but I got busy and forgot.
Jo
Sue Fomby wrote:
> <snip>
>
> It has all the earmarks of instructions written by someone so familiar with the process that they've forgotten what it's like to be doing it for the first time. To the writer, the assembly probably seems obvious or (that red-flag word) "intuitive."
>
> But if they had a good tech writer, approaching the process with fresh eyes, they would have seen that at the least, they needed an exploded view and better sequencing information. 8-)
>
> </snip>
IPCC 01, the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference,
October 24-27, 2001 at historic La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
CALL FOR PAPERS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 15. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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