Why marketing should make the user manuals

[Melissa Nelson]

I was at the air show in OshKosh, Wisc and there were a bunch of old  World 
War 2 and earlier airplane manuals for sale. Some of them were pretty 
expensive. I am still kicking myself for not buying a couple of them. A lot 
of them were made with such care and thought as to where to place pictures, 
and many of them were just out and out pretty!

Maybe Susan is correct and all our word processors and layout software have 
taken some of the art away from our Guides and Manuals.

Melissa


>From: "Susan Hogarth" <hogarth at gmail.com>
>To: techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com
>Subject: Re: Why marketing should make the user manuals
>Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 09:02:53 -0400
>
>On 8/31/06, Bill Swallow <techcommdood at gmail.com> wrote:
>>It all comes down to purpose and execution. User guides are not
>>intended to wow anyone. They're meant to educate. And, a B&W layout is
>>as appealing or as dull and boring as the designer wants it to be.
>
>At an auction, I came across a beautiful old 16mm projector. Didn't
>buy it, because our house is too cluttered already, but the manual
>alone was almost worth the price it went for (around $20, I think). It
>was -lovely- - slick B/W pages with -wonderful- drawings and diagrams
>and beautifully written. The layout was beautiful - more polished than
>many books of the period (1950s, I think). I'm not a luddite, but I
>wonder sometimes if word processors and layout software have just
>enabled people to do things sloppily with more ease...
>
>--
>Susan Hogarth
>http://www.colliething.com
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