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Subject:Re: TECHWR-L Digest, Vol 37, Issue 2 From:tom -dot- kohn -at- kodak -dot- com To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Mon, 3 Nov 2008 10:26:16 -0500
Geoff, Edwin, Kathleen, & others -
I'd like to emphasize Geoff's note, "a well-designed product does its
best to eliminate adverse consequences, or at least to protect its
users from those consequences, thereby eliminating the need for
cautions."
That said, the use of CAUTION, WARNING, or DANGER (not a note or hint)
serves a double purpose:
- Alerting a user to avoid unsafe activity on the equipment (and, in the
case of well-designed products, bypassing safety guards).
- Partially indemnifying your company against forseeable unsafe activity.
(Not being a lawyer, I'm not aware of consistent precedents of indemnity
against UNforseeable unsafe activity. ...But there is a limit to an
author's imagination in this regard, and less of a limit to the
imagination of the users.)
Geoff is indeed on target in regard designing the procedure to avoid
unsafe conditions.
Best regards,
Thomas G (Tom) Kohn | Technical Editor | GCG WW Versamark Engineering
Services |
Eastman Kodak Company | 3000 Research Blvd | Dayton, OH 45420-4003 |
tom -dot- kohn -at- kodak -dot- com | +01 937-259-3210 Office | +01 937-271-1484 Mobile |
+01 937-259-3784 Fax |
www.graphics.kodak.com
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Message: 3
Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2008 07:53:59 -0400
From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
Subject: Is there a study on reading warnings, notes?
To: TECHWR-L List <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, Edwin
Skau
<eddy -dot- skau -at- gmail -dot- com>
Message-ID: <5D01503A-2271-4C7D-A36E-AC60FF3F7D4C -at- videotron -dot- ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
Edwin Skau wondered: <<Is there a study that shows how many people
actually read warnings, notes and tips?>>
... I don't personally
know of any -- I no longer have regular access to research journals.
I tried a quick Google, and came up with far too many results to sift
through, none of the first few screens from journals. Maybe there are
some academic members of our group with better access to journals who
can provide suggestions?
Meantime, if you wanted a quick feel for this, why not poll your own
colleagues...
<<Before I moved to tech writing, I always treated them as 'asides'
for later reading that never happened.>>
... some of these "asides" exist purely for legal reasons:
like the "caution, the contents are hot" warnings on coffee mugs, the
warning is there to protect your company, not your customers. To be
effective, a caution or warning should be integrated in the
procedure, not set aside where it can be ignored. For instance,
instead of having a sidebar saying "plugging in the device can result
in an electrical shock if you're standing in water", why not make
step 1 of the procedure "Dry any spilled water, your feet, and your
hands before plugging in the device. Failure to comply will..."?
This is also a strong reminder that a well-designed product does its
best to eliminate adverse consequences, or at least to protect its
users from those consequences, thereby eliminating the need for
cautions. With electrical equipment, a ground-fault-interrupt socket
would prevent shocks under these circumstances.
...(Here, the real story was not
that the woman should have known that coffee is hot, but rather that
McDonald's allegedly made their coffee too hot despite warnings from
judges in previous lawsuits.) Japanese and Chinese tea cups (the ones
with no handles) have an interesting design feature: if the cup is
too hot to pick up comfortably, the contents are too hot to drink.
That eliminates the need for a "caution, it's hot" warning, because
you won't drink the tea until it's at a safe temperature. Software
could be designed equally sensibly if anyone bothered to take the
time to do so.
<<Many folks I've asked about this have confessed to similar reading
behavior.>>
Whereas I read the "asides" first in many cases. But your anecdotal
evidence is important: it reminds us that most people read only the
minimum they need to escape the documentation with the knowledge they
need. Karen Schriver studied this behavior quite some time ago, and
found that something like 80% of all readers do nothing more than dip
into our documentation to escape with what they need and nothing
more, and that broad pattern (not the actual number) appears to be
fairly representative. We need to design documentation around that
principle... for example, by building warnings and cautions into the
steps rather than setting them aside.
----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
--------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2008 08:32:22 -0500
From: "Kathleen MacDowell" <kathleen -at- writefortheuser -dot- com>
Subject: Re: Is there a study on reading warnings, notes?
To: "Geoff Hart" <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
Cc: TECHWR-L List <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Message-ID:
<a6597e660811010632h4ca6d8d9i8f6656a5bb580877 -at- mail -dot- gmail -dot- com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
I completely agree with Geoff's idea that the warnings should be
incorporated into the steps/main content when they're related to personal
safety, and that is how I have always written them. Then the offset
warnings
or cautions are added for emphasis (We mean it). In addition to placing
the
content in the line "thought," I've always wondered how much attention is
given to those warning/caution boxes. When I've written hardware content,
sometimes there are a lot of warnings, and it seems possible that people
would habituate to them.
It's really a no-brainer. Contrast that with a recent download experience
I
had: Click on the button to download now. Next sentence, "Turn off the
device before downloading the frabbitz." Not even in a separate step, just
tagged onto the download instructions. Adding insult to injury (or
frustration), the instructions were completely missing from the main
download page--one could just download without any instructions. Sheesh.
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