This week I was contacted by a journalist from a UK national newspaper. Simon Usborne writes about technology for The Independent and asked ‘in the case of increasingly intuitive devices like the iPad [...] is the art of writing manuals [...] a dying art?’ In my opinion, the short answer is a definite ‘No’.
There are two main reasons for the continued need for user manuals:
- Product design
- Reference
Too many product designers still remain distant from end-users. Their products lack the accessibility and usability that would allow the end-user to behave instinctively, without a manual. Then there is still a large number of people who prefer to refer to a booklet before they attempt to use a new product. Even those who are less cautious often need a manual to take advantage of new features – regardless of whether that manual is a paper booklet included in the box or is available online or through help files.
Is it an art to write manuals? Without a doubt, yes. If engineers or subject matter experts wrote about their products, the majority of users would be left wondering how to start using a new product. It is the art of technical communication that a skilled technical communicator employs to put themselves in the position of the end-user and transform the engineer’s source material into a logical sequence of tasks that the user wants to do. Even with the notions of ‘live’ and ‘interactive’ invading the domain of the paper guide, the essential skills of the technical communicator are imperative in analysing, organising and presenting information in real-time for user.
We may still need them but that doesn’t mean that companies are producing them and when they are I would argue that standards are falling sharply because they are being produced by non-technical writers. At the end of the day it is too expensive to produce a high quality information.
By: calialex on 14 April 2011
at 4:29 pm