Directions and Guys.oh MY

[boggen]

some folks are more mechanically inclined vs others, and have been around enough things to pick up on the small things vs others.

for myself, looking at diagrams, and like go pretty easy with me. and taking stuff apart and putting them back together they way they came off, goes without a hitch majority of the time.

but like the one person noted a swing set. *UGHS* when they give you 20 different bolts, 40 different washer sizes, 10 different nut types. *gggrrrr* and the directions and/or diagram forces you to look back and forth between multi info just to find what you are looking for then compare what you need. *grrrr*

it would be nice if someone during making a product would say hey, why not just use same size screw and/or bolt for this entire thing or area. instead of giving customer 100 different things.

=========
on other hand. many times say working on a vehicle / tractor / atv. if you are buying a part to fix the thing yourself. i would think it would be applied that you have the skills or can quickly pickup and figure out what needs to be done.

on another note. there are family members i will go directly for questions on one thing, and then for something else i will go to another family member. different folks have different skills / knowledge.

 

[jinman]

The problem with getting good instructions is that the people who understand assembly are not writers. The people who are writers are not good at illustrations. The illustrators can only draw to somebody's specifications and that takes an engineer. The engineer only wants to work on a contract and that takes a contractor. . . see where I am going? Pretty soon you have huge publishing company full of specialist nerds and they can't even remember what it was that got them started.:laughing:

 

[Western]

JIM, when did the "guvment" get in this conversation??:laughing::laughing:

What you said, just about applies to everything, whatever happened to "cross training" or jack- of- all- trades?

Even instructions on seed packets make me chuckle sometimes. I remember buying seed at the feed stores with NO instructions..

 

[scgargoyle]

Let this be a lesson to you- Do NOT wait until Christmas Eve to put the toys together. Some day over a beer I'll share with you how I know this......

 

[ustmd]

I have to say some of the better consumer/general instructions have been from IKEA on their flat pack furniture. The instructions do not rely on text steps. Everything is by drawing (this way they only have 1 set for all countries).

Also, they generally design everything so that screws/connectors are either interchangeable or are unique to one location.

 

[crazyal]

It's not just the directions. I just bought a HF oil drain can for under a lift. The inside is galvy but the outside where they welded it together the paint was falling off and already started to rust. Having to paint or repair something brand new because of poor quality is just a pain.

 

[mjncad]

Having to paint or repair something brand new because of poor quality is just a pain.

I just bought a new Dell workstation to use solely for graphics, and I couldn't get the resolution the monitor and video card are capable of. It turns out the problem was the cheap Chinese made crap video cable is the problem. Putting on a known good cable narrowed the problem down. Now I wait for Dell to FedMex me a new cable and video card.

Anyway, instructions are an overhead item, and the cheaper the item, the crappier the instructions.