Bjo Trimble is the grande dame of Sience Fiction fandom. She organized the letter writing campaign that saved Star Trek for its third season, without which it probably wouldn’t have gone into syndication.
She’s also a bit of a technophobe. So in the ‘80s a word processor manufacturer hired her to write the user manual, figuring she could make it understandable to people who didn’t have the experts sitting next to her.
Part of my Dad’s job as an industrial advertising copywriter involved sitting down with engineers and learning all about their product… so he could then write about it in plain English that the buyer and user could understand.
Engineers too often wrote only on their own level, They did not know what things never to assume about the reader- so if you did not have their base of knowledge, their writing was out of your league.
IT people can be the same. But it is strange to me, as an Engineer who writes software for a living – understanding the users of your system is one of the most important things, otherwise you end up having to work out what they did wrong all the time – so it is much better to learn how to create system and manuals to suit them. That and if you can’t talk to a layman about your subject then you really don’t know it at all.
Comedian’s one liner (Milton Jones) – Instructions are getting difficult, I just don’t know that many languages
x_Tech over 6 years ago
To save money just use Google Translate to translate from English to Chinese to Urdu to English. That should take care of any user manual.
Nyckname over 6 years ago
Bjo Trimble is the grande dame of Sience Fiction fandom. She organized the letter writing campaign that saved Star Trek for its third season, without which it probably wouldn’t have gone into syndication.
She’s also a bit of a technophobe. So in the ‘80s a word processor manufacturer hired her to write the user manual, figuring she could make it understandable to people who didn’t have the experts sitting next to her.
davanden over 6 years ago
Are there user manuals at all anymore?
contralto2b over 6 years ago
Ah yes, user’s manuals. Used to write them. Now never read them.
rshive over 6 years ago
User manuals tend to assume too much about the people who use their products.
Thomas Scott Roberts creator over 6 years ago
Part of my Dad’s job as an industrial advertising copywriter involved sitting down with engineers and learning all about their product… so he could then write about it in plain English that the buyer and user could understand.
Engineers too often wrote only on their own level, They did not know what things never to assume about the reader- so if you did not have their base of knowledge, their writing was out of your league.
John M over 6 years ago
IT people can be the same. But it is strange to me, as an Engineer who writes software for a living – understanding the users of your system is one of the most important things, otherwise you end up having to work out what they did wrong all the time – so it is much better to learn how to create system and manuals to suit them. That and if you can’t talk to a layman about your subject then you really don’t know it at all.
Comedian’s one liner (Milton Jones) – Instructions are getting difficult, I just don’t know that many languages