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Various comments included:
>> Sometimes illustrations would be illegible if every item had its name
as the callout. Using numbers can simplify a drawing.<<
>> Seems that no matter what the general rule, they all end up looking
like the fifth type. (random) ;) <<
Pare the drawing down to only what is needed for what the user
needs at that point in the manual. Yes, this will create many more
illustrations, and a much longer document, but any opportunity
for confusion, and Murphy's Law will raise it's ugly head.
This is not a trivial task at times, for it involves taking a full size
engineering drawing, selecting only those portions of the drawing
that are useful and redrawing it to suit your audience.
Engineering drawings are intended for multiple audiences, and
contain far more information that a typical end user needs,
regardless of who the end user is.
The action of moving the eyes from the drawing of the item number
to the list of items can be very confusing and some numbers look
very much alike, depending on the font used.
When I was creating instructions for a machinist to create a
part from scratch, I only provided enough information for each
step to be able to perform that step. Anything else got in the
way of the machinist and they assumed that if was on their
instructions, they needed it.
Direct information, where they need it, when they need it,
and nothing more.
CB - writing for software is very different than hardware,
but the same principle applies
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