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What Peter Neilson said. Sad, though. And, no, UIs havenât gotten a bit
better.
On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 8:28 AM Peter Neilson <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>
wrote:
> As most of us are already aware, constraints of design, manufacturing, or
> law can make it impossible to read the manual, or even to find the
> manual.
> My favorite example is the can of bug spray. The directions are printed
> on
> the can, but in microscopic size. They begin with the ominous and
> mandatory phrase, "It is a violation of Federal Law ..." followed by many
> more required words. It's all repeated in microscopic Spanish or French
> so
> that speakers of those languages also cannot read it.
>
> In earlier times the printed manual often did not arrive at the
> installation site or into the user's hands, but instead was sent
> elsewhere, perhaps to the Corporate Library. Or six months late. Or not
> at
> all.
>
> Today when I need information on some product I look online, usually not
> at the manufacturer's website but instead at blogs, videos and diatribes.
> The former will contain a PDF full of "bugspray" caution notices in
> twelve
> languages. The latter have the actual meat, such as "Don't even think of
> buying one of these," or "This is a good, basic chainsaw. Follow the
> usual
> safety precautions. Really. Please, really!"
>
> Better than any chainsaw manual is a brief viewing of videos googled at
> "chainsaw blunders."
>
> Traditional tech writing is now fully obsolete, mÃme en Ãcrivant en
> franÃais ou en espagnol. äèçäæåï
>
> On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 07:39:12 -0400, Sion Lane <sion -dot- lane -at- unit4 -dot- com> wrote:
>
> > I realise it is not Friday, but today is the day this came to my
> > attention. The winner of the Literature section of the Ig Nobel awards
> > for Improbable Research (https://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/) seems
> > very valid to us technical communicators.
> > https://academic.oup.com/iwc/article/28/1/27/2363584.
> >
> > I especially liked the reverse engineering of RTFM.
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