Instructions...diagrams or pictures?? Options

[Mueller]

Do you most of you actually read the instructions or do you wait till you hit a wall?

Are instructions with too many details and notes bad?

[TonyAKAVW]

I prefer diagrams. The problem with some diagrams is that they miss important detail that a picture may contain. Also, relative dimensions can be lost in poorly made diagrams.

I read the instructions on the PP site in their tech article section before doing something to my car. I'm a relative newbie at working on cars and I am afraid of messing things up permanently, so I usually read through fisrt before doing anything.

Instructions with too many details: depends on your level of expertise. Some things are obvious to some that are a mystery to others. Err on the side of excessive detail but not to the point that the main idea is lost. Maybe put critical information in bold and leave minor details in normal type.

Photos are great as a sanity-check, because you can make a true one-to-one comparison between what you have done and what the correct installation or configuration should look like.

-Tony

[Lawrence]

The first place I go is diagrams, later to written instructions. Personally, I have to be able to see the "big picture" before I can put the details together in my mind.

For me, the best of all possible worlds would be diagrams with explicit footnotes.

-Rusty

[seanery]

When I was younger I would only read the directions if I couldn't figure it out myself.
Now I read the directions, then I'd look at the diagram and/or pictures and then read the instructions again.

[Jeff Krieger]

I like instructions that lead you through the procedure step-by-step and in sequence. In general, I don't believe there's such a thing as too much detail. Do not, however, do it like some instruction manuals that I've had where they lead you through three or four steps and then say something like "But first, do ___"!

[jonwatts]

Well produced diagrams are probably clearer than pictures. I feel like an idiot but I can't tell you how many times Brad has posted a picture of what he's talking about and I can't even tell what I'm looking at or in what orientation.

Too much detail in written directions CAN be a bad thing. People get lost in minutiae. You have to figure out how much is enough detail so you're not answering the same questions from users over and over again.

[Brad Roberts]

I cant read.

Give me pics.

Show me.


B

[Jeroen]

I'd say go for diagrams
If you wanna know why... look at the Haynes manual (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

cheers,

Jeroen

[need4speed]

yeah, well, where diagrams suck, it's usually because they were poorly drawn. If they're drawn by someone who has a poor spacial understanding of the part, or how it's used, or what it looks like - quite often they draw from a reference photo, and the photo is of poor quality, so due to overexposure or underexposure, or crud on the part, or poor choice of orientation, the drawing ends up not being much better.

And where the photos suck, it's often the same reasons mentioned above -
Or: a photograph simply can't give you a good 3-dimensional understanding of the part, because it's a complex shape, and can't be properly oriented so that all aspects of the shape are visible, and there's where one of two things can solve the problem:
multiple angles, or doing a cutaway.
If the artist is good, the cutaway can be done in a diagram without sacrificing the part.

All of these things really boil down to how much is spent on production of (I assume we're talking about) manuals. Whether they hired a good artist - whether they commissioned him or her to do a thorough job, whether they had a good photographer to take reference good reference pics, or whether the artist had a physical model, or engineering drawings to work from.

I'm an art-school dropout, and frankly, not really that good of an artist - (professionally, I do computer support, I don't really even do art as a hobby anymore), but long ago, I did some work doing drawings for a manufacturer of automatic gate openers. The end result sucked. Partially because of my poor quality work (and I was cheap, so that's why I got the job instead of someone good). But also largely because the manufacturer was a cheapskate, and didn't want to pay for the hours it would have taken to really do that job properly.

So my preference?
Either or - as long as the diagrams or photographs convey the information necessary to get the job done, for both the novice (who may not have any familliarity with the parts) and the expert. (who will likely not even crack open the book in the first place).

[Russ K]

Its really just a matter of *quality*. Give me a good diagram OR photo... as long as you get the point across accurately.

Poor diagrams leave out stuff and dont seem to relate to what you're looking at in your garage whereas poor photos can be cluttered and you get the feeling "my car is confusing enough.. why am i tryin to deciper this other guy's?!?".

[Dave Cawdrey]

I've always learned by fuckin' up the first time thru, then goto directions...

Or by tearing it apart first (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smash.gif)