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The CEO for my company refuses to provide customers with documentation that does not apply to what they have purchased.
His reasoning came from a BBQ he purchased a couple years ago. The manual had 4 models inside. He thought he had one model, but actually had another. The instructions he followed didn't work, he got frustrated, and returned the BBQ. He said customers don't want to deal with information that doesn't apply to them because they are already dealing with record amounts of information everyday as it is...
Content management tools can allow you to internally create any type of manual configuration you need, and only deliver what the customer requires. It takes more logistical maintenance, but makes the customers life easier.
An intelligent approach would balance the end-user needs with internal requirements (safety, disclaimers, translation, etc.). It seems like you might be focusing too much on internal requirements...
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+bdavies=imris -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+bdavies=imris -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of McLauchlan, Kevin
Sent: May-05-11 10:12 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Disclaim THIS!
Hey all.
Increasingly, in my experience, when I buy an appliance, toy, consumer product of almost any kind, the packaging contains:
i) a thin instructional booklet or pamphlet (with directions to a website if further help is wanted...)
ii) a not-so-thin book of Safety Alerts and compliance disclaimer text (FCC, UL, CSA, CE, ....), usually in multiple languages.
The disclaimer book (as well as the instructions, sometimes) is obviously intended for many more products and models than just the one that I have purchased.
If it's legal (and it must be...?) then I have a hard time seeing a downside to that approach, rather than including a disclaimer section in a printed manual (or Not-So-Quick-Start Guide) for each product.
What do you/your company do?
What I see is:
a) if it's good enough for Sony, Matsuchita, Belkin, Cisco, various cell phone makers, Acer, Benq, CatEye..... it should be good enough for us
b) it assures standardized language across the board - no risk of techwriters getting the wrong text from a dubious source for one or another product, or duplicating effort
c) it centralizes translation
d) it ensures that as any product enters a new market or regulatory space, the needed disclaimers are already there - one less thing to worry about during product dev and project arc
e) we might be able to foist the task onto Legal Dept. or on some poor engineer who is tasked with compliance issues for the company
f) it's one part number.
Does anybody have a counter-argument or anything to add? I'm about to propose this in our multi-national, multi-product-line company.
- kevin
<bumpf-start>
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