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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: 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?