TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
As a former user of these types of documents I can say that another factor is probably that the text is the least frequently used part of the documentation. A lot of these documents are used by people who are trained first, and they're only using the documentation as a reference to remind them of various details they might have forgotten.
As an example, when I was working as the armorer for my company in the Army, I never needed the "directions" for doing weapons maintenance ... I needed the exploded diagrams. (Note the spaces around the ellipsis ;->) The only time I was looking at the text was to get the tolerances - torque the barrel nut to 18 ft. lbs. I had spent three intensive weeks learning everything there was to know about taking M-16s apart and putting them back together (to the degree "allowed" for a small unit armorer) and wasn't likely to forget the tasks I did regularly. I just needed to check the numbers.
On a similar note, what would make you more uncomfortable as you're getting on board a 747?
1. You see the person performing pre-flight maintenance on the engine continuously looking down at the directions like some noob who doesn't have a clue as to the difference between the compressor and combustion area.
2. You see the person performing pre-flight maintenance on the engine working steadily as if he knows what he's doing, consulting the manual occasionally.
Hmmmm... is there a third choice? :-)
Dan
>
> When a large organisation (like AECMA, ATA, or any
> other
> civilian/military organisation or body) sets out to
> create a
> specification for the creation, maintenance and
> production of technical
> documentation, why is such an infinitely small
> amount of effort put on
> the part of the spec that defines how technical
> documentation complying
> to this spec should look like when formatted as
> page-oriented output? I
> know - page-oriented output may not have been
> AECMA's first intention
> with the spec (rather IETP &c), but that is the way
> that many industries
> use the spec anyway.
>
