h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Instruction Booklets - A854859
Author: Terran(ACE) - U201249

Any ideas to improve this?

Take 'airfix'* kits for example.

As a child one always needs to glue the 'best bits' together (like the fuselage and the wings) before realising that there are 139 other pieces that need to be assembled in the interim. It takes a great deal of amelioration, but at least teaches (theoretically, but not practically it seems) instruction manual usage.

Since then, I have bought all sorts of fax machines, printers and the like, and have attempted blind-assembly, only referring to the manual as a last resrot, i.e., when bits don't snap into place.

And the chunky manual that comes with a new car is certainly just glove-box filler. Amazing.


My Father, Mister Trout, completely and irrepairably (sp?) disassembled a coffee-filter machine on Boxing Day "to clean it". Fortunately, the chain of High Street Pharmacists were kind enough to offer a replacement.

DMT

* I have used this word in the generic hoover sense.

There are two types of manuals:

1. One size fits none.
The manual writer or writers are forced to create directions for many similar (or disimilar) models. The manuals are either written before the actual layout of the product is confirmed or written in haste just as the thing is being boxed after the first production run.
In dealing with previous models, the writer often has to consult a murky photocopy or fax of the original writer's preliminary notes.

2. Pick a language, any language.
The manual has been translated by a bored college student in Latvia, who was using three 19th century dictionaries, a pencil and a legal pad to make over the manual from it's Mandarin original into Hebrew, English and German. The original was written by a bored clerk who was plagiarising from a Japanese manual for a similar but not identical product.
Neither fellow has actually seen the product, but are using hand-traced line drawings from a murky black and white photocopy of the color photo on the cover of the original Japanese manual.

tonsil, you've hit the nail on the head. Guess what I'm doing throughout a working day

Not again!