Re: HP manuals, the way they used to be Message #17 Posted by Dale Reed on 29 Feb 2012, 7:26 p.m., in response to message #1 by Don Shepherd
I believe part of the problem nowadays is that big companies have tech writing staff separate from the designers and developers of the product (who are even separate from each other). The "why it was designed that way" never makes it over to the tech writers (if it even made it into the product).
Instead, the folks preparing manuals do what they've been trained to do, which is follow ISO and IEC standards for documentation with respect to whitespace, layout, the ever-present warnings and standards compliance pages, and, per the lawyers, document the terms and conditions of sale and warranty. WAY more important to the producing company than the "how to use it" info, unfortunately. This is the case at lots of companies, not just H-P.
Tech writers get awards, raises and promotions based on evaluation against those measurable criteria, and not for any "subjective" criteria like "can the reader actually use the product"...
And, yes, there's no budget for quality paper, multicolor printing, and time to write detailed "how to use it for what YOU want to do" descriptions. PDF on a CD is all you get -- if that -- or a web link.
I will always treasure my HP-25 manual for its introduction to RPN, its CLEAR visualization of what's happening in the stack, and its tutorial flow in line with the user's gaining of knowledge and experience from practice. When I got the 25 for my 18th birthday, I went through the manual from cover to cover, working all the examples, in about two days*. Within a week, I was cranking stats and writing programs for my high school physics class labs.
I have a pin button that I wear sometimes that says:
IF I CAN'T USE IT, IT DOESN'T WORK.
Time to start wearing it every day.
Dale
*Yes, I had no social life. How observant of you to notice!!! ;-)
Edited: 29 Feb 2012, 7:29 p.m.
|