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>
> Actually, it's the educated class I'm worried about (now includes most North
> Americans). They are able to reason new and clever uses (or situations) for
> a product, that the engineers (in horror) never thought of. Problem is, they
> (the educated class) see no written warning of their folly, and decide that
> it must be a sound use for the product ... or else there would have been a
> warning against it.
>
> When I write a manual or service bulletin, I have to think of what stupid
> actions may be done by following 'slightly' outside of my instructions. I
> often learn where the warnings should go by using a mixture of - common
> sense, past dumb experiences, years of knowledge, and what the highly
> skilled people on the floor did. That's why, if I saw a warning on a Dremel
> - to not use it as a dental instrument. I wouldn't be laughing, since it is
> a very real possibility someone will see it as a low-cost alternative for
> their practice (once they make it hygienic by wrapping Saran-wrap over it).
>
Bruce, I think you've come to the crux of the matter. Tempting as it is
(at least for me) to disparage these sorts of warnings, I try to remind
myself of a fictional anecdote I read long ago. The story described an
experiment in which an ape was confined in a cage. The cage had been
carefully designed so that there were just four ways to escape it, and the
object was to see which one the ape used.
The ape escaped a fifth way.
Knowing how something is intended to function can blind you to how
someone totally unfamiliar with it will assume it works. Developing (and
maintaining) the ability to "think like the audience for your document" is
one of the things that makes technical writing a challenge.
Chris
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