User Guides and Instructions
Greetings Earthling,
I started programming in about 1967, assembly language (the primary reason I am crazy today). Fortunately I escaped to higher order languages over the years. Now that I have officially retired I found WA and have to admit that I just couldn't resist getting involved and still wish that I had done so years ago.
It hasn't taken long for me to remember why it was that I went crazy. I mean 16k of ram, a 10mb drive, green text only screen, what can be so maddening about that. With that much power and capacity how much trouble can one get into anyway?
I was working as a Sr. development engineer on a computer controlled radar (that's right, a real computer with only toggle switches for binary inputs and little blinking lights for the output) and infrared guided weapons control system when the first stages of insanity began to creep in.
One day I was looking for a psm-6 that somehow walked to the Boeing lab next door, when I came back to my lab noticed something in the corner, covered with a dusty old tarp with the letters HP on it. I asked around as to what the ancient computer under that tarp was for. I was told it was to make our job easier. That explanation was followed with a "good luck with that" remark and numerous grunts, groans, and Yea Rights from the entire engineering staff in my lab.
I dug out the pile of manuals and started to try to figure this out. After about a month or so I found out that the HP on the side really read HelP. The 'el' was just rubbed off, or so I was told. In another few weeks I began to twitch, druel and mumble. The copyright page scared the hell out of me. I immediately took up smoking when I saw that the entire set of manuals were created by the very engineers who designed the computer. I have been involved in this business long enough to know that this is a recipe for disaster and a total waste of binders, paper and ink.
Engineers are for the most part not technical writers. By the time I was up to 2 packs of cigarettes a day and a six-pack in my lunch bag, most of my hair was pulled out and like everyone else, I put the tarp back on the computer, pushed it behind some filing cabinets. I disavow any knowledge of this whole mess. Withing a day or two I stopped smoking, combed what was left of my hair, shaved off the nearly foot long beard that wasn't there when I opened the 1st manual, and in a few weeks of 7-steps I gave up the booze. I still have the twitch.
Ahhhhh, I could sleep again. Things got better with computers. In no time they even had games in color. My, my, my, aren't we intelligent creatures! Why yes we are! Now, you are undoubtedly wondering why I have used up your otherwise productive time to tell you some old war story.
The answer is this: The computers are better, faster, smaller, but one MAJOR problem exists... the engineers and developers (of all of that magnificent software) are still writing the manuals. Little do they or their employers realize that approximate 63.865% of the fancy capabilities go wasted. If there are no instructions, or if there are instructions that are full of the "well I wrote it in technical jargon" (and associated deaf and dumb mindset of those same engineers and developers) making a great portion of the fancy footwork useless to us normal humanoid lifeforms.
As I moved along during my career with Hughes Aircraft I found the first mistake the companies made was to allow the experts to create manuals with 300 plus pages of unintelligible half English and half the unknown language of the engineers. No one but the engineers really understands it at all! Not to mention that by the time the developers finish with what was intended to be helpful instructions, the other engineer has 3 new revisions compiled and published so the instructions are out of date when they hit the street.
The most successful approach to this issue is to hire someone from the local street corner to sit down with the engineers and program developers to verify the accuracy of the instructions using only their instructions to go through the learning process for whatever it is they are trying to describe. This process is punctuated by the non-technical word "HUH?" which was to give the designers permission to talk only long enough to clarify and make the appropriate changes in the manual. This "HUH?"usually marks the the instruction, word, or group of words as an area that no normal person without psychic powers could possibly understand and thus requires a rewrite to plain English. As the Borg would say, "resistence is futile".
I hope it is apparent that what I have been talking about is a TOTAL lack of communication that renders an often marvelous peice of equipment or ingenious software as completely useless. I carefully use the word "hope" because I am an engineer and what makes perfect sense to me appears to be Sanscript to everyone else.
11th Commandment: Any attempt at written communication should NEVER be attempted by a developer without the assistance of a complete novice.
Developers working together with a somewhat normal person will usually produce a useable and worthwhile set of instructions for the intended end-user. Otherwise every end-user will be chain smoking, drinking, and growing a nice beard at 3 am within a week.
David
aka Hygrade
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