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from the if-manuals-are-for-sissies,-who-are-automatics-for? dept.
Lancelot Braithwaite cannot get through my visit without bursting forth a mantra that once served him and thousands of consumers well: “Read the frickin’ instruction manual!” he bellows. “And don’t throw it out unless you’re pretty good at memorizing it!” Never mind that products—from iPhones to Facebook—have made manuals into curious artifacts of a distant era. That era is alive if not well in Braithwaite’s smokey, cramped one-bedroom on West 14th Street.
Before tech product reviewers were brand names, there was Braithwaite, thundering his wisdom and geekery from publications that now exist only in yellowing copies. It was a time when the best critics were so familiar with technical specifications that their knowledge rivaled the engineers who built the products. And none were as omnipresent or as savvy as Braithwaite, who even served on industry standards committees.
Manuals are for sissies.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday November 07 2017, @06:36PM (5 children)
Things even come with manuals these days? There is possible the giant EULA or legal document telling you that you accept all problems and liability if things go sideways. Then there is the commercial document congratulating you for buying this awesome quality product. Then there is the installation pamphlets where they tell you to plug it in somewhere and then wait for the technomagics to kick in and do it's thing. I'm not even sure last time I got an actual manual with proper installation instructions, product specs, troubleshooting information or something even close to that. Even the PDF:s you can download from the manufacturers homepage barely qualify as a manual these days.
Once upon a time it was interesting to sometimes read reviews cause you knew they would take that thing to the limit and try all the weird shit with it. These days we have "unboxing videos" and reviews that are more like product placement articles (or adverts).
Everything was better before .... get off my lawn!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Tuesday November 07 2017, @07:26PM (3 children)
It is interesting to think about how much some kinds of products have changed over the years. An early 1980s software manual would likely have a large foldout displaying the applications' menu hierarchy. But later applications used more code and ram to draw consistent friendly graphical menus. Pages may have been spent on things that even back then people would have wondered "why the fuck doesn't the software just do this for me?". Volumes of advanced commands were instead moved to searchable electronic help files, and so on.
So logically, manuals have shrunk and serve a bit less of a purpose.
But any significantly complicated product (more complicated than "touch here to see a picture of a cat") still needs some kind manual. I can't count the number of times I have used something and missed some useful advanced or time saving feature because I did not read a manual or did not have one to read.
But manuals these days are absolutely pathetic jokes.
So I set set up some product using vague minimal instructions written in broken "Engrish". Then I need to actually DO something with it, so I click on the built-in help aaaanddd... it sends me off to some damn web page that dosn't even load.
Yea, they put it all on teh webs in teh clouds where nothing can go wrong. The company went out of business? They re-arranged their web site? The application is more than five seconds old and needs an update to work? They never finished the damn manual in the first place? I'm not anywhere near an internet connection because that is where people actually use the product? Something in the millions of pieces of web browser, http protocol, tcp/ip, routing, wiring, outsourced services, server configuration, ISP throttling, corporate firewalls, government censoring, or so on could absolutely NEVER fail? Oh, and if it does load, the documentation is useless and states only the damn obvious.
Well, off to eBay to find an old product that actually WORKS, has real manuals, and doesn't blind me with blue LEDs.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:25PM (1 child)
For some things, a print manual is uselessly obsolete, because it is impossible to maintain as the product changes over time. A manual from 6 months ago is 10% wrong now, which is as good as useless and possibly worse.
I'm all for keeping the manual online, but then you realize most companies aren't being rewarded for doing this. They could be selling support contracts to you instead.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday November 07 2017, @09:39PM
Yes, sometimes the program needs to change, but by not providing any sort of manual the manufacturer reserves the maximum freedom for them to change any part of it, at any time, without notice, etc.
Which is not always a good thing.
I'd dearly love to see some of these projects to commit to something, ANYTHING, in terms of a logic or rationale for how their UI works from one point release to the next.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday November 07 2017, @11:02PM
THIS. Then you find the same thing goes for the customer service people's flowcharts. Anything not on the flowchart (therefore not damn obvious) and they hang up.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday November 07 2017, @10:30PM
Let's not forget that the EULA, disguised as a manual, is also binding by merely realizing it exists, and binds you to use biased Arbitration instead of a less biased litigation.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.