Reply: In defence of Japan

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

        There's been a certain amount of Japan bashing floating around with
     respect to inferior manuals for VCRs and other consumer electronics. I
     won't defend the indefensible, but I'd like to point out the problem
     isn't solely Japanese. My RCA manuals from a few years back (1987 or
     so) were every bit as bad, and written by North Americans, I believe.
     The owner's manual for my GM car was even worse: someone had published
     this sucker using a database publishing application, and hadn't even
     bothered to verify that they'd used the right database... the Pontiac
     6000 station wagon was always described as a Pontiac, occasionally
     described as a station wagon, and often (at least three times that I
     recall) described as another model of car entirely (not even the same
     model in each case).
        Sturgeon's law is that "97% of everything is crap". While I
     wouldn't go that far, there's certainly more bad technical writing
     than good. There's actually a company in Toronto that makes house
     calls to assemble anything labeled "some assembly required", since we
     all know that this means "assembly possible for the top 20% of an
     engineering graduating class, given enough time", and I've read of
     other such companies in the states (but can't provide details).
        The problem will go away when companies are prepared to pay for
     decent writers and editors, and for a smidgeon of usability testing;
     it won't go away until then.
     --Geoff Hart  #8^{)}