Who writes owners manuals?

[cqaigy2]

I wished i'd kept the owners manual from my parents 1960s Golden Buffalo tent trailer. It was a literary giant among owner's manuals. Well written sentences, clear illustrations and engaging.

They bought it mid 60s and gave it to my wife and i late 90s. I was still back packing alot and found i don't like to be in campgrounds with all the other people so we gave it to my SIL. They used it till just a couple years ago, and gave it to one of their adult children.

I forgot to mention, it did have at least one warning, something to do with the furnace, but i didn't need to read the manual to find out why you don't leave the gas going too long while trying to light it.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

I like the instructions/ manuals that come as pictures only..... with arrows pointing to the parts to be assembled..... yeah, right!

we do have a favorite pastime of reading the really poor "translated" instructions..... some of those are just downright funny!

 

[orezok]

The engineers write them, the marketing department embellishes them then the lawyers redact them

 

[sunandsand]

Favorite line from a technical manual "Make sure the gears are in harmony softly". (1965 Yamaha 250 workshop manual.) Makes better sense after a few cups of Sake'. Very Zen . . .


I'm in complete agreement that most technical manuals are so bad they make awful look good. I do get tired of reading pages and pages of legal disclaimers when what I'm looking for is how to turn the darn thing on. Took me an hour of head-scratching and a phone call to the dealer to determine the correct tire pressures on my B2601. Real men don't read the instructions because we have realized they are totally incomprehensible and even trying to read them is a complete waste of time. (28 in front and 20 in back, ag tires, just in case you wanted to know.)


Every couple of months, Cessna sends me another "safety label" to stick on the panel. They advise the airplane isn't airworthy without it. I have so many "required" labels already that pretty soon I'm going to need a periscope to see out. No problem, I'll just fly IFR from now on, that way I won't have to look out the windows.


Nevertheless, I DO read the instructions, every time, often three or more times, because I don't like breaking things (or myself) out of ignorance. I find that as bad as they are, they are better than nothing. I also tend to ask a lot of questions. I tried to find a basic tractor operation course as well - astonishingly, there are NONE in central Florida! (Well what do you expect, everyone here drives an SUV, not a tractor.) I had to settle for reading some very generic online stuff which mostly told me how not to get hurt, but not how to operate the tractor with any skill.

Best Regards,

Mike/Florida

 

[MossyDell]

Great thread. I probably should make a separate post for this question I have about instructions in my owner's manual for my new Kubota B2601. Here is the issue.

Under 1ST 50 HOURS BREAK-IN FOR NEW TRACTOR:

Don’t operate at full speed [big emphasis]*

Don’t operate faster than necessary*

*“Applies to all tractors but especially important for new tractor.”​

I'm really babying this tractor! BUT most operators I know seem to run diesels wide-open, new or not. What's the consensus here?

 

[Industrial Toys]

Agreed. Any chainsaw manual should come with a safety tutorial explaining how GRAVITY affects things.

As for RPMS. Depends on design. More and more newer stuff, to save money (give the customer not one cents worth more than you have to) many machines will run at wide open throttle to fulfill 540 or whatever specified PTO speed.

 

[jymbee]

Because they have lived with this thing forever, they are intimately acquainted with it, know every nook and cranny and, by simple human nature, unconsciously, take lots of stuff for granted.

As a former manual writer-- software apps not hardware-- you nailed it exactly. When hired to start putting together a new manual the biggest challenge is typically trying to get the developer(s) to understand that: "No, you can NOT just assume they know how to do that!"

An in depth knowledge about any subject does not easily translate to that knowledge being explained to a new user. The best manuals IMO don't shy away from what to some may seem like basic instructions that should be just common sense. However if you precede the simple with "If you already know this, skip to... " that gives readers an easy way to focus on what they do or do not understand, everyone wins.

But of course, budget and time constraints often take precedence over technical writing skills. My "favorite", in a negative way, are those instructions that are written on 2 point type on a single sheet of paper, folded a dozen times and expandable to oa huge sheet that reveal it "all"-- in seven languages no less!

 

[kenmbz]

My Tractor specifically said to run at full RPMs(green marker on my tach) for first 50 hours to break in motor and seat pistons. No overrev though

 

[artf]

CAUTION: Running you tractor at wide open throttle may accomplish work. See your dealer for details.

Anybody else running my equipment stopped when I observed my neighbor's hired help keeping my tractor at max rpm idling in place. They were working a drainage project and couldn't be bothered to idle down when they got off the tractor for a few minutes.

I run at about 80% max, moving up when I need the additional power. I don't need to burn the fuel or shorten the engine and pumps' lives at higher RPM than is necessary to do the job. I turn the idle down when doing low or medium speed tasks.

I've asked the Engineers (Design & Service), the dealers, the dealer techs and local operators. None can provide a valid technical reason to max out the RPMs all the time, but most operators max out the throttle right after warm up......because it's not their machine. They are not concerned with the service life or cost. Their focus is work completion rapidly....check out the rear of every jobsite SSL, MTL/CTL and excavator for the results of this focus.

 

[RammerJammer]

How 'bout the manuals that provide you with all sorts of things to do and not to do but fail to include things like power consumption, electrical connector sizes, fuse sizes/locations and other details which are imperative for the proper use of the equipment? Or, even a specification sheet or the terms of the warranty? I happened to receive such a device yesterday. Still don't know if the d@mn thing has fuse(s) or what the warranty terms are - Had to figure out one connector size on my own. The other wasn't in the manual but appeared in the product details on a website. (6.5mm x 4.4mm with a 1.3mm pin!)

To me, such manuals should be given to something akin to Consumer Reports (I said AKIN - Don't care for their tight-a$$ed attitudes many times) along with the product. If 5 or 10 normal people spent a few days with the manual and the product, most issues (vagueness, contradictions, omissions, etc.) could be ironed out. And, I bet customer support staffs/expenses could be reduced while customer satisfaction would increase.