Within Chapter 19, Chapter 20, and the Instructor Blog #4 there was a lot of very interesting information introduced. The task of writing instructions is almost spelled out into an art. Similarly as writing a normal technical document, Chapter 20 explains that while writing instructions a writer has to think of the primary, secondary, tertiary, and gatekeepers of the document. Also the writer has to think about what is offensive to other cultures when writing the document. One of the most interesting things was that in the readings, was that using a dog in a graphic might be offensive to certain cultures. I thought that the statement was interesting and funny at the same time. I know that instructions for things like IKEA’s furniture is shipped throughout the world and probably has over twenty different translations, but changing graphics is a whole different ball game with editors. Translation words and phrases can be done easily, but re-cropping and editing graphics will take a lot of time and money.
Making a good instruction manual is a very hard thing to do. A well designed instruction manual or information pamphlet takes a lot of time and thinking. The Segway information pamphlet was a very good example of a good information pamphlet. The information is easily readable for a person with a background in science or math, but might not be easily read by others. Considering the audience is a huge part in making a good instruction manual. I think it would be hard for my grandmother to figure out the Segway manual, even if it has great graphics. I think that researching the users and the ability of most users will help make a good manual.
Another topic covered was considering the hazards in an instructions manual. The idea that someone can make a lawsuit on a company because of an instruction manual is kind of weird. I guess that is more of a reason to make good instructions.
Hazards
Up until pretty close to the end of chapter 20, I was a little bit worried about how they presented hazards and safety information. Safety info was listed after the instructions on the bullet list of basic instructions on page 4, and again underneath "minor steps" on the logical map on page 15. I kept thinking people usually proceed with steps as they read. So if safety information is listed after the step is described or, even worse, after the entire process, it's pretty much useless.
So I was relieved toward the end of the chapter with the actually discussion of hazards. The text is absolutely right: safety warnings need to be listed before the procedure if they are general or before the step if they are specific. This is important. As the text mentioned, it's not just about avoiding a lawsuit. Instructions-writers have an ethical obligation to look out for their users.
As for TCT, I would suggest a revision in the next edition that rearranges the information to reflect the primacy that's needed with safety info.
Caution
With regard to safety warnings, I don't think that anybody would disagree that it's the ethical responsibility of the writer to inform the reader of any relevant hazards, but I do think that the line between user-centered warnings and lawsuit-centered warnings may be a hard one to draw. The CNN article makes a good point that the warnings are getting so ridiculous that few of us even read them anymore. However, I feel that using a more user-centered approach may cause another dilemma. If you denote the more realistic hazards before the procedure or even within the steps, where do you list the hazards that are meant to protect the author from lawsuits? If they're listed at the end of the document, nobody will ever read them (including the people with the potential to do something extremely stupid). This protects the writer, but is it really effective and/or ethical? It seems as though a big difficulty in our projects will be denoting safety hazards in an effective way, especially for instructions centered around computer hardware and cars.
Cautions
I don't think that lines should be drawn between thoughtful warnings and the more obvious, sometimes silly "lawsuit-centered" warnings. I still hold the position that warnings should be listed before the activity that warrants them, no matter how stupid they seem to some. I agree with you if you are saying it is unethical to toss warnings in at the end of your document to cover yourself from lawsuits.
I actually disagree completely with the CNN article. It's true that each one of the "wacky" brainless warnings/cautions listed can be identified with common sense. But I think they are all necessary. Since when can you assume that every member of the public uses common sense? People do a lot of stupid things. Haven't you ever watched Jackass on TV? The world is full of people who don't use common sense. The reason people worry about lawsuits over those things is because there are actually people out there who need those warnings. It's a fact.
I'm also not convinced by the comments of Robert B. Dorigo Jones, M-LAW president, who says people don't pay attention to warnings because they are stupid. First of all, he doesn't give a single fact to back his point up. Secondly, obviously people do pay attention, or else there wouldn't be a contest on a "popular radio morning show" and there wouldn't be a national news story about it. I think people don't read warnings because they just don't read instructions, plain and simple (which is one of the main reasons why the things we are talking about are important). If anything, I would say this article's existence wacky warnings proves that stupid warnings draw more attention to safety comments, for better or worse.
Instruction Manuals & Legal Issues
I used to share you thinking that it was odd that instructions could create a legal issue for companies, but then in my internship last summer, I started thinking of the term instructions more broadly. We often think of instructions as simply telling someone how to use a tool or a program, but we don't think of them as directing people through interactions with other people. I was writing a Standard Operating Procedures Manual, which is corporate speak for an instruction manual on how to do your job. In my situation, I was writing for the management company of an apartment complex. The instructions I wrote were extremely important to protect the company from an employee's poor performance. For example, let's say that the company is getting sued for refusing to approve a African American man's housing application under the Equal Housing Opportunity Act. The SOP instructions are crucial for the management's defense because they explicitly lay out the criteria for how to evaluate an application. If the man's application doesn't meet the objective standards given in the SOP, then the company has support for their reasoning in declining the application and can safely claim that it didn't do so based on racial grounds.
The situation seems less technical than writing instructions for a program, but writing instructions for a software program was part of writing instructions on how to evaluate the application, and did have serious implications for the company.
Kristin
Interaction
I agree that an instruction set is really an interaction between the writer of the instructions and the user. A good instruction manual will guide users step-by-step to produce the intended result. When instructions aren't field tested, or when one instruction set is applied to differing models or versions of a product, frustration can result. Your example of writing a Standard Operation Procedures Manual demonstrates how important a good instruction set can be as far as legalities are concerned. Warnings always need to be considered and addressed when your instructing a user on how to perform a task.
Legalities
I never really thought of technical writing in this aspect. Your example was an excellent display of how legal issues are such a huge concern with writing these documents. We need to understand that these documents have repercussions. Understanding these repercussions allows us to write something that will leave the company legally covered in many situations and ultimately render the document more useful. If the proper job instructions are laid out for an employee the company will ultimately get better work out of them if they understand their job better. So in this situation you have considered the legal audience and the primary audience. Once again, if we take into account how all ends of the audience may be interpreting this document it will ultimately be much more effective.
Instructions are so frustrating!
I certainly understand where you're coming from. I couldn't believe it when I tried to put together an entertainment unit that the instructions consisted of four pictures when the box had five different screws and multiple brackets. At least the eight steps to put it together were printed in five languages (very helpful use of space). I find it so frustrating that manufacturers never consider their audience when creating instructions.
The most important thing I took from the readings is that I need to consider my audience when writing instructions. Much like we talked about in the employment project, evaluating and testing your instructions on your target audience is the difference between being helpfull and making the process more frustrating.
Mike Sheridan