Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I purchased this book to help me make the transition between my engineering & graphic design backgrounds to my new career as a technical writer/illustrator. I gave it two stars because the price isn't equal to the quality of the book or the knowledge gleaned. If it were a simple hard back at $15, it'd be 4 stars easy.
Pros:
- Short, only ~160 pages
- Direct, some of the steps are well crafted obvious statements
- Well researched, writers have worked with many groups over many years
- Some nice technical illustrations
Cons:
- Price, price, price. It's a small 8x10, thin paperback monochrome book that I'd expect to see on a bargain table for $5, but $50? After some thought, I think this book might be a left over textbook; it's that college bookstore kind of mark-up.
- Preface is painful to read. Maybe the author was so burned out on writing simple easy to follow instructions that maybe they felt this was really the time to shine. If you are crunched for time, just skip it as it can unfairly color the rest of the text.
- Be weary of reading this book before working with ex-military engineers.
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Guidelines for Developing InstructionsConfusing, inadequate instructions for setting up and using consumer products are not only unhelpful, but potentially dangerous. They may contain wrong information, poor warnings, and no pictures or illustrations. Standards are either non-existent or little known, even though the U.S. government has developed and tested standards for the past thirty years. This book presents a set of guidelines written by The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society that have been tested by human factor specialists. This expert advice is applicable to writing assembly procedures, operational procedures, and user, shop, and repair manuals.
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