Re: Great Technical Manuals from Canon!

["Dana Worley" <dana -at- campbellsci -dot- com>]

Interesting to see all these kudos about Canon manuals. I 
purchased a Canon SD 700is last year. I thought the manual was 
awful -- confusing directions on how to enable the features, and full 
of "duh" help but nothing helpful. For example, there was 
information on how to change the ISO, but there was nothing telling 
me *why* I might want to change the ISO (BTW, I understand ISO, 
this is an example :).  

This was in contrast to a Nikon Coolpix L1 manual, that, while it 
didn't go into great detail, actually did tell you why/when you might 
want to use a specific setting and provided fairly clear directions on 
how to enable the feature. I was so frustrated with the Canon 
manual, that (being the tech writer I am) I had the fleeting thought of 
writing a "How to use the Canon SD 700is" manual for the other 
poor souls out there like me :)

[ An aside for those interested in cameras: IMO Picture-wise, the 
Canon SD 700is does a better job than the Nikon Coolpix L1 (both 
point & shoots, similar cost & similar features). But, my Nikon D40 
digital SLR is king -- at least in my house :) ]

So... back to technical writing... From my perspective, the Canon 
manual was a lot less useable than the Nikon, though they were 
very similar products. As always, it depends upon your audience 
and it wasn't me the Canon writers were targeting. I'd like to think 
I'm not the least common denominator out there, but maybe so :)  

2 cents,

Dana W

***************************
Dana Worley
Software Product Manager/Manager, Software Support Group
Campbell Scientific, Inc. 
dana -at- campbellsci -dot- com


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