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Re: [OM] How badly do you want a really good user manual?

Subject: Re: [OM] How badly do you want a really good user manual?
From: "Bill Pearce" <bs.pearce@xxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 09:02:17 -0600
Aw, screw that, Wm. What I want is a manual, any manual, printed on paper,
not some help file where I need to divine what the writer calls something to
see how it is filed. Apple is the most blatent example of this sort of non
documentation. The manual with my D3 is long, not war and peace long, but a
substantial novel sized, and it is useable, although things are oddly
organized. The manualwith my M9 is the least opaque, but not translated from
Japanese, so that may be the issue.

 

I'm not a linguist, but perhaps CH can chime in here. Are the structures of
Asian languages so different from English that translations are a serious
challenge? Are good english to Chinese/Japanese/etc. translations also rare?
I know that the translation of theplural of shrimp on chinese restaurant
menus is often incorrect. I also know that the translation of Engineer to
English is also often impossible.

 

Bill Pearce

 

From: William Sommerwerck [mailto:grizzledgeezer@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 6:53 AM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OM] How badly do you want a really good user manual?

 

Most of you would agree that user manuals are almost always of poor
quality -- badly written, poorly organized, and generally lacking the
information needed to get the most out of the product. When user manuals
from foreign companies (Yaesu, Plextor) are good, it's because they were
written by the importer.

The very worst manual I've seen is for one of the most-expensive products
I've ever bought, a Pioneer KURO. You cannot believe how bad it is. The
Japanese have a remarkable knack for not explaining how a feature works, or
why you might not get the results you expect.

Once things settle down after the new year festivities, I'm going to make a
frontal assault on the US offices of a major camera manufacturer, to
convince them that they need to provide top-rank documentation. (If they
don't, I might initiate a class-action suit.)

It would be of great help if you described your degree of frustration with
DSLR and electronic flash manuals (from "perfectly satisfied" to "I want to
trepan the moron who wrote it with a dull apple corer, sans anaesthesia!").
I particularly want to hear about specific features or functions you found
poorly documented, and whether you've lost or ruined photos because the
manual didn't correctly explain something important.

Please keep the focus of this thread on the quality of documentation, and
not let it wander. Thank you very much.

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