Word: manual
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...matter what happens, do not look at the manual...
...press the button, we do the rest." That marvelously simple slogan helped sell millions of Eastman Kodak cameras starting in 1888. Today, however, the owner of a new video cassette recorder or some other electronic wonder must turn to an instruction manual to get his machine working. But that is often when the trouble begins: the consumer opens a booklet to find a compilation of jargon, gibberish and just plain confusion. "There is a major disease in this country called wall-stare," says Sanford Rosen, president of Communication Sciences, a Minneapolis consulting firm. "When people read a computer manual, they...
...instructions are bad business as well as a torture to read. A maddening manual can cripple sales of products that might have been successful. Coleco lost $35 million in the fourth quarter last year partly because people flocked to return the initial version of its Adam computer, which the company offered for $600. In a statement to shareholders, Coleco blamed much of the consumer dissatisfaction on "manuals which did not offer the first-time user adequate assistance." Observes Joseph Sugarman, president of J S & A, a mail-order house that specializes in high-tech merchandise: "Very often, items with...
Consumer electronics companies insist that customers are generally satisfied with the directions they get. "Over the past year the number of complaints we have received because of difficulties understanding our user's manuals would probably fit in one hand," says W.T. Collins, a vice president for consumer affairs at RCA. The firm's instructions used to be written by design engineers, but now they are prepared by technical personnel who train distributors in how to operate and service RCA products. Says Collins: "We realized that engineers have a tendency to make the content of a manual...
...clear manual can be a thing of beauty and a joy forever. "Those that are well thought out make good reading," says Catalogue Merchant Joseph Sugarman. "They sound as if they were written by a teacher with plenty of patience who is aware of all the mistakes a consumer can make...