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Who Determines What a Good Manual Is?

 
Who should determine what a good manual is? Is it the person who wrote it or is it the subject matter expert? The answer is neither. Why? The writer will always believe the manual he or she produced is good while the subject matter expert will always believe if he or she can understand it clearly so will others and that makes it good.

The reality is, both of them would never use or need to use the manual, so does it really matter what they think of the manual? Not the slightest bid. So who will use the manual? The real truth is, no one. The users whom the manual was written for will not use them unless the user has no choice but to use it. This happens only when the user is unsure of how to perform certain tasks.

So who should determine what a good manual is? Subject matter experts generally do not understand their readers well enough, this is not the fault of the subject matter expert because their knowledge of the subject is way beyond their readers and often consider most information as "common knowledge" or "they should know". More often than not, they are incorrect assumptions.

Writers on the other hand feel it is the way they express themselves clearly with their good command of the language and therefore it constitutes a good manual. This is also substantiated by the fact that owners of manuals feel that as long as a person can write well, the manuals they produce will be good. However, these writers are constantly flawed by errors of assumptions.

The best people to determine whether written manuals are good are the readers whom these manuals were written for to decide. They are the ones who will have to use them when they encounter difficulties in work or user applications. It is they who can truly determine whether the written manuals are easily understood, easy to locate answers to their problems and if the instructions are clear.

No automated system, experienced writer or subject matter expert is capable of determining what a good manual is; they can only at the very most verify the accuracy of the information in the manual.
 

About The Author Lo Wai Munn is a trainer, a technical writer and web content professional with more than a 15 years of experience. He has authored several manuals for international distribution and process documents for multinational companies. He was a recipient of a Letter of Commendation from the Ministry of Education, Singapore, for his involvement in training and user manual development.

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