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Subject:RE: Appalling English From:Robert -dot- Partridge -at- MONDEX -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 13 Nov 2000 10:55:51 -0000
You're so right. At the company I worked for, they were most concerned (and
probably rightly so) about getting products out on the market for the lowest
price they could. There wasn't a great value add for them in producing high
quality instruction books. Their main priority was increasing the sales
volume so that the small margin they made on each product piled up in their
bank accounts! They conceded this position for two reasons:
1. Safety. For a product like a toaster, there had to be many statutory
declarations concerning the risks associated with using the product. The
instruction book for a toaster,if I remember rightly,was a 6 page fan folded
A6 booklet, of which 5 pages were safety warnings.
2. Products that were expensive to handle via customer services. A
microwave, for example, typically generated hundreds of calls a month
regarding cooking instructions. I was commissioned to reduce that call
volume by adding a basic cookbook section to our existing operating manual.
The things you have to do as a technical writer!
Leading brands (like Sony, JVC, Panasonic, etc) are more concerned about
their image, and so have a commitment to reduce their returns rate (number
of products returned to shops and thence to the warehouse) to below 0.5%. My
company worked on the principal that they were a low-cost, high volume
retailer, and so didn't mind if its returns rate was up to 10% or higher!
All of which made my position as a technical writer very tenuous. If they
could get away with not including a manual, they would.
Rob
Robert Partridge
Technical Author
Tel: +44 (0)20 7557 5098
Fax: +44 (0)20 7557 5298
Email: robert -dot- partridge -at- mondex -dot- com
> ----------
> Yosuke Ichikawa[SMTP:ichikawayosuke -at- obun -dot- co -dot- jp] wrote:
>
> A lot of times, the section in charge of the manuals seems not to have a
> strong position themselves within the company. Manuals are not necessarily
>
> high in the company's list of proirities. They want to provide their
> products with as many catchy features at the lowest profitable price;
> these
> are, understandably, what sells the product, at least in the immediate
> sense, and, in their view, the manual is almost something they reluctantly
>
> have to include. (I still believe that badly written manuals would harm
> their reputation, but they're worried about the immediate sales figures).
> Thus the manual section work under great cost-reduction pressure ( except
> perhaps in a few very successful companies, which my current main client
> certainly is not one of).
>
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