Repeated Cautions: necessary or redundant?

[Liz -dot- Goodwin -at- ametek -dot- com]

Theresa Harris wrote:

As I rewrite one of the manuals, an engineer
has questioned whether we really need to include the cautionary part of
steps that are done over and over again.


We manufacture analyzers and have had the same questions asked, except not
by the engineers, but by the tech writer. I was told that it is a question
of liability. Like you, we have an introductory section that we ask the
user to read before installing and/or operating the analyzer, that explains
all of the safety procedures and uses of "cautions" and "warnings" in the
instructions. What I decided to do additionally, was to begin each chapter
with the appropriate warnings/cautions for the procedures in that chapter
with the accompanying icons. When the user comes to the first procedure in
the chapter that the warning/caution applies to, I document it. After that,
I just put a warning or caution icon and tell the reader to refer to the
statement at the beginning of the chapter.

This also shortened our manuals considerably since we, too, had repeated
cautions and warnings on every other page.



Liz Goodwin
Technical Writer, Dycor
AMETEK, P&AI
liz -dot- goodwin -at- ametek -dot- com


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