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[OM] good manuals in foreign languages

Subject: [OM] good manuals in foreign languages
From: William Sommerwerck <williams@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 18:52:07 -0700
"Generating any manual is no easy job, especially translating into other
languages is compounded amount [sic] of task, effort and financial
burden.

"One might argue -- why not hire professional technical translating
agencies with computer power? Maybe it is not as financially burdensome
for companies such as Sony or Toyota, who have vast product lines all
over the world."


Good points, worth addressing.

There are a number of problems involved in producing good instruction
manuals, in either your native tongue or foreign languages.

Perhaps the biggest problem is meeting the release deadline. Writers
don't want to spend a lot of time working on a manual for a product that
isn't ready. This means that most of the work is done in the few weeks
just before the product ships.

This, naturally, affects the translated versions. There is essentially
_no_ time to get feedback from your foreign importers and correct any
errors (either of fact or translation). I have repeatedly complained to
Sony and been told that Sony Japan sends preliminary manuals for review
(about two weeks before shipping!), then _refuses_ to incorporate any of
the suggested changes!

This touches on the second major problem -- face. I have no direct
evidence, but I suspect that the Japanese view _any_ errors (or poor
writing) in a manual as a loss of face. This can be avoided, of course,
simply by ignoring _any_ criticism directed at the documentation.

Professional translators are _not_ the solution to the problem. What is
needed is, first, the _desire_ to write good manuals. Proton wanted good
manuals, and the ones I did for them often got compliments from
reviewers.

Second, the company has to recognize that the _only_ people who can
write a good manual in any language are native speakers of that
language. This means the company must supply prototypes and a rough
translation (or a full description of features and functions) at least a
month or two before the product ships. This would allow writers with
photographic experience to create a decent manual.

The alternative is to have the importers produce their own manuals,
which would be packed with the product after it's imported.

The writers _must_ know photography. You cannot produce a good manual
unless you have a thorough knowledge of what you're writing about.
Otherwise, you tend to write an insipid, superficial manual that doesn't
tell the users what they really need to know. (This is a _fact_. I've
seen it too often.)

I got into technical writing because I wanted to significantly improve
the quality of consumer documentation. It looks like I might finally
have a chance to do it.


"Olympus is not a really large company with lots of financial muscle,
although their market share of medical video endoscope is somewhere in
the 90% range world-wide."

It's comforting to think that if a doctor sticks something up your rear
end, it was probably made by Olympus!

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