Re: Manuals of Japanese Consumer Electronics Companies

Subject: Re: Manuals of Japanese Consumer Electronics Companies
From: Robert Plamondon <robert -at- PLAMONDON -dot- COM>
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 1995 08:45:38 PDT

Ken Takarada writes:

> Please tell me what you think about manuals from Japanese consumer
> electronics companies in general. Are they any different from the
>"poor-to-somewhat-below-average" manuals you get there in the States?

Japanese consumer electronics manuals suffer from problems that are
quite different from lousy domestically produced manuals:

* Japanese manuals tend to be written by people with a minimal grasp
of English grammar. Bad American manuals may sometimes be written
by people with a poor grasp of English grammar, but that just makes
them sound uneducated, where the Japanese manuals become incoherent.

* Japanese manuals tend to include little cartoons. Drawn in a
manga style that uses many conventions that are unfamiliar to
Americans, these cartoons aren't very helpful to American readers.
Also, in America, cartoon-style instructions are traditionally
aimed at children or illiterates, so their use in Japanese
manuals seems insulting and condescending.

* Japanese manuals are often repeated in six or seven languages, making
them less accessible. Personally (since I am aware that paper cost
is the dominant factor in high-volume printing), I think that these
manuals indicate poor production planning on the part of the manufacturer:
they are paying more money for a poorer manual so they can avoid
inventory control.

* Most Americans are, at one level or another, aware of the enormous
quantities involved in a production run of Japanese consumer products.
They are also aware that Japanese consumer electronics companies
know where to find native speakers of English -- they can find
America on a map. They typically even have large staffs of Americans
in their U.S. divisions. Thus, most Americans are aware, consciously
or unconsciously, that Japanese consumer electronics divisions just
plain don't give a damn about the American consumer, and are unwilling
to spend the pennies per product that would give them an excellent
manual, instead of an incoherent one. In the minds of anyone who's
ever tried to hook up a stero according to the manual, these horrible
manuals betray an attitude of indifference, disrespect, or contempt
toward the American customer. (Since virtually everyone in the U.S.
government has at one time or another tried to hook up a Japanese
stereo according to the manual, I wonder how much the infuriating
incompetence of the stereotypical Japanese manual has influence our
foreign trade policy.)

-- Robert

P.S. When you buy the stereo, the secret is to never open the manual.
While a stereo can almost always be set up correctly by inspecting
the connectors in back, the manuals serve only to confuse the clearly
labled connector functions.


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