RE: Creating inch and metric tutorials (longish)

[Chris Gooch <Chris -at- lightwork -dot- co -dot- uk>]

Geoff  wrote:

(( sorry, I can't resist replying (I was out the office Friday) ))

> You didn't provide
> specific examples of why it would be a problem to put metric equivalents
> (accurate to, for example, two decimal places), but I assume the examples
> are sufficiently complex that rounding errors would lead to problems with
> parts interfering, not aligning, or not fitting together. 

Noooo...  the problem with doing that is that it is entirely unrealistic,
and you might as well not bother. It may come as a shock to North Americans,
but the majority of the world does not drink 567 ml of beer, drive at
94.345 kph, or use feeler gauges which measure 0.9263 mm at a time.
Oddly, they prefer 500ml, 100kph, and 0.1 mm. :-)

(OK, in Britain we do the first two but not the third, don't ask me why)

I'm sure that the purpose of doing a metric version of the tuturial
would be to reduce the cognitive loading on the reader by using standard
sizes for parts, which relate to the standard size tools which will
be used. Many MasterCam users will be designing widgets which will actually
be made, for real, some day, and these things matter. The aim being
to teach how to use the software, not the use of the US measurement
system.

> <<3. Create manuals only in metric and let the few countries that use
inches
> fend for themselves.>>
>
> Not a good solution. If you're concerned about your audiences, it makes
more
> sense to stick with the larger audience, which right now is your
> imperialists. <g> And as NASA recently found out with Mars Explorer,
simply
> ignoring metric vs. imperial differences can lead to very expensive
> problems, so you'd do better to pick a solution that avoids these
problems.

Really? I thought the problem was caused by two sets of engineers failing
to agree to use *just one* set of measurements and stick to it. That way
you don't get to a) do a conversion wrong; b) do a conversion twice;
c) fail to do a conversion.

The lesson being; in Christine's situation, she needs to avoid conversions
being necessary by producing two separate, localised, sets of tutorials.
I think that will turn out to be less effort than attempting any
conversions.
As I think someone else also pointed out, it may even be worthwile doing
some tutorials which are appropriate to different industries, for similar
reasons. The only alternative I think is to provide "noddy", un-realistic
tutorials which may well be counter-productive. Only by having a good idea
of the target audience is it possible to decide on this. Worth asking for
opinions on the CAD/CAM newsgroups?

You then have to decide whether it's worth the extra work - I know I'd
like to produce examples/tutorials appropriate to different audiences
for the products I document, but there's never time... ;-(


Christopher Gooch, Technical Author,
LightWork Design Ltd., Sheffield, England. 
chris -at- lightwork -dot- co -dot- uk    www.lightwork.com




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