Why do we put so many warnings in our manuals?

Subject: Why do we put so many warnings in our manuals?
From: "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 16:12:19 -0400


North American culture is the culture of the victim, in which personal
responsibility is never accepted so long as it's still possible to blame
someone else for your problems. That's not to say that all North Americans
(the only group I have broad experience with) behave this way, but it
certainly seems a safe generalization in my experience. Of course, all
generalisations have many exceptions, but it's worthwhile remembering that
some people would rather sue you than try to think through a problem.

So we really do have to take great pains to make our products safe, and
exercise considerable ingenuity in figuring out how people could hurt
themselves so we can stop them. We can only rarely browbeat product
developers into fixing problematic products, and thus, end up trying to
solve those problems via documentation. The unfortunate reality is that this
is impossible. Engineers have a deliciously cynical saying that "you can't
develop a foolproof product because Nature always evolves a more tenacious
fool". It's true.

Think I'm kidding? Check out http://www.amasci.com/weird/microexp.html for a
long list of things you really shouldn't do with your microwave oven. Then
there are the things you already do without thinking twice about it, but
probably shouldn't do; follow the link for exploding coffee for an example
of this category. Can you imagine trying to sell management on a proposal to
include instructions not to do any of these things in a manual for a
microwave oven? Not likely.

This leaves us in the unenviable position of having to litter our manuals
with warnings and cautions and notes. But let's face it: if we don't do it,
who will do it for us?

--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"User's advocate" online monthly at
www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/usersadvocate.html
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a
personality, and an obnoxious one at that."--Kim Roper


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Buy RoboHelp Deluxe starting at only $798: you'll get RoboDemo, the hot new
software demonstration tool that's taking the Help authoring world by storm,
together with RoboHelp Office. Learn more at http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l

Your monthly sponsorship message here reaches more than
5000 technical writers, providing 2,500,000+ monthly impressions.
Contact Eric (ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com) for details and availability.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.


Previous by Author: On-line vs. print (WAS: Of myth and reality)?
Next by Author: Include error messages?
Previous by Thread: Re: Fw: Why do we put so many warnings in our manuals?
Next by Thread: Re: Fw: Why do we put so many warnings in our manuals?


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads