Heavy metal manuals, take II: liability

["Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Rebecca Price continues to do battle with her heavy metal manuals:

<<Here I am, back like a bad penny, asking for your patience and help
again...>>

So that would be Rebecca _Penelope_ Price? <g>

<<I need to suggest to our lawyer some wording for a disclaimer for
our manuals: something to the effect that while we make every attempt
to make sure our documentation is accurate and complete, we're not
responsibile for injuries or damage caused by inaccuracies or missing
information.>>

I wouldn't waste my time, since that's why Satan invented lawyers.
Send this exact text to your lawyer and tell him to make it sound
legal. But IMHO, the text is likely useless, even if prepared by a
lawyer, for two reasons:
- if you can't document that (e.g., through your customer review
process and a search of the industrial accident literature) you made
heroic efforts to identify and resolve all such problems, the wording
would never stand up in a court of law. A good lawyer would make
mincemeat of you if someone got hurt as a result.
- even if you have made good-faith efforts to detect and solve all
problems, a sharp lawyer and a sympathetic jury can still make a
mockery of such statements.

I suppose I shouldn't really say that the text is useless, since it
will often prove effective if you have made a good effort to protect
your customers, but by no means should you let your bosses replace
good usability testing and hazard research with a simple disclaimer.
In fact, if you can get your lawyer to make such a recommendation,
you can win a rare opportunity: carte blanche to do usability testing
without the bosses reflexively throwing up obstacles. Once you make
the usability testing part of your documentation process, inertia may
keep it going in the long term, and then you're in like Flynn: you
get to talk to real customers periodically and continuously improve
your documentation.

Given how early your manuals are in the evolutionary process towards where
you want them to be, and how few resources you likely have right now
to improve them, I strongly recommend triage: when you revise your
old manuals, focus on completeness and safety first; then make them
clear and communicative; finally, for your next revision, handle all
the little details you'd love to do if you have the time (e.g., make
it an award-winning manual).
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

Hart's corollary to Murphy's law: "Occasionally, things really do work right."