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> 1. a study by xerox reported in 1986 that more than 80% of all
> manuals produced by the fortune 1000 companies were seldom opened
> more than twice; this represented an estimated 3 trillion pages
> costing $75 Billion.
No surprise for several reasons - here are a few:
o Only 10-20% of the population read the manual before starting
operating the product. If it's 10% or 20% depends on the
properties of the product: about 10% sometimes read the manual,
sometimes not, depending on how complicated the product looks (I
belong to that group). The remaining 80-90% only read the manual
if they run into problems - and probably never find out about a
lot of features for the same reason.
o For many products you only NEED to open the manual when installing
the product. If you want to know more about which part of the
manual is really needed, read about "product complexity" in my
book (for info: see my website", URL below.)
o Think about: how many non-technical literature books (novels,
etc.) are read more than once? Is that a horrible waste, too? I
think most authors will say "no" (they live from selling copies).
> 5. most developers of engineered systems and products do not know
> how to interface with those who must prepare the documentation
> needed to support their work -- because of this, the real losers
> are those who must rely on the documentation.
And that's why a lot of engineers and programmers are asked by their
boss (who is normally one of their own) to make the documentation
themselves. But you can't make a user documentation for a product
you have developed yourself! You simply know the product too well to
have any idea about the users problems with understanding YOUR ideas
because they are natural thinking for you, but not necessarily for
the users.
> 6. the key priority of using documentation has little to do with
> how "pretty" the manuals are; readers want 3 key features:
>
> a. functional organization,
> b. consistent presentation,
> c. accurate and complete content.
YES !!! But a bad design can spoil it all.
> 8. documentation and manuals are an expense -- in most cases,
> they do not generate revenue for the developer -- most technical
> writers have no expertise in costing and budgeting for this work,
> address only part of the entire process, and fail to report the
> total costs to management -- management has no understanding of
> the true costs involved and fail to appreciate the value and
> importance of the results.
In most cases, I don't agree!
o In very many cases there is a legal demand for a manual to include
warnings and instruct the users. This means, that you can't legally
sell the product without including a manual. And if you can't sell
the product legally, it may reduce your income significantly! It's
a pity so many manuals are bad, but that's another story.
o Several of my customers has reported, that they have used my
manuals as a part of their sales promotion material. This has
especially been the case when trying to find new distribution
channels, and when selling on contracts (e.g. airport equipment).
Good manuals are a good sales argument - if the sales people get
the idea to use them in this way!
Greetings from Denmark
Peter Ring
PRC (Peter Ring Consultants)
- specialists in user friendly manuals and audits on manuals.
prc -at- isa -dot- dknet -dot- dk http://isa.dknet.dk/~prc/index.html
- the "User Friendly Manuals" website with links, bibliography, list
of prof. associations, and tips for technical writers.
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