This technical writing project required me to find any published set of instructions and offer improvements for readability and design. The letter below explains my position on the original owner's manual with links to the original and my revision.
Sherry Thornburg
3223 Red Dr.
Anywhere TX 77339
281-333-3333
Date:
October 27, 2010
Wal-mart
Stores Inc.
Box
2345
Bentonville,
Arkansas 72716
Attention:
Sam Walton
Improving
Owner’s Manual F-345AWM
Introductory Summary
I
recently purchased a floor jack from your store that included one of these
manuals, F-345AWM
MVP
Super Lift, Hydraulic Floor Jack. I found problems with this owner manual’s legibility
and design that should be brought to your attention. These problems impede the reader
and create obstacles to the use of the manual. A format with design elements
that smooth the look of the pages and increase legibility would make this a
much more usable manual.
Design Elements in need of Revising
Legibility: The first
difficulty is that the manual was printed in what appears to be AvantGuarde and/or
Arial font. While these are standards in website formatting, they are in fact difficult to read in print. This is especially true when printed in a
size less than 12 pt., which is the case in your illustrations and
troubleshooting checklist. The use of all capitals, bold and not, in much of
the manual also decreases legibility. The use of all capitals in print is commonly
used for catching the eye, but becomes tiring to the eye when used in body
text. Also, the thin type font used on a black background of the front cover, are
faint and broken on my manual. This was likely due to the ink saturation being
very dense during the print process. Due
to such variations in ink saturation it is best not to use such thin fonts over
black backgrounds.
Design: It appears that
the original designers attempted to avoid duplication of graphics by double
labeling all graphics in two languages. This works with the graphics, but the
need to have graphics near written instructions for illustration prompted the
designers to use a two column format with English on the left and Spanish on
the right. Readers are conditioned to consider information in a left column as
leading to further information on the right. This manual does not follow that
conditioning, causing confusion and a pattern of stops and starts in the
reading process.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The
use of sans-serif, in itself,
needs to be changed to a more legible serif font such as Times New Roman, which
is a standard in print material. All front cover fonts on the black background
should be printed in a wider font. The use of all capitals in any area other
than a heading should also be changed.
The booklet layout should be re-designed to avoid stops and starts in
the reading process. To that goal, I
believe a bilingual format separating English and Spanish would be better. This will only require the manual be one
sheet larger and will promote a more helpful and efficient reading experience. I
suggest a reverse flopped format with English on one side and Spanish on the
other.
Included
is a revision sample for your consideration.
Your user manuals are very important sources of safety information and
instructions for your customers. I believe you will find the changes I propose
improvements that will render them more user friendly.
Sincerely,
Sherry
Thornburg
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