Ask To See The Instruction Manual Before You Buy
If Best Buy or Circuit City were forced to display the instruction manuals next to their products in the stores, no one would ever buy another digital camera, plasma television or home theater. A classic example is the 147-page instruction manual that came with my newly purchased surround sound receiver. Once my eyes saw the manual, my ears no longer wanted surround sound.
Had I thumbed through the manual in the store, I would have seen the warning signs:
- 36 part names on the front panel; 14 more on the display and 19 more on the rear panel;
- dozens of illustrations that looked like plates of spaghetti (a preview of the many wires I would find shortly); and
- the coup de grace—a chapter titled, “Easy Set-up and Operation.”
Why is it that the words “easy” and “simple” are only present when the task at hand will be anything but?
Of course, the electronics retailers are not to blame. The manufacturers, specifically their engineers, are the ones who dream up the hundreds of features. Then the writers of the manuals make it worse. The manual I was reading seemed to be written for either a moron or a rocket scientist. One page had cartoon drawings of the receiver crying, melting and otherwise exhibiting human traits while the next talked about “connecting the pre-out terminals, the trigger-out terminals and the multi-zone terminals.” I can’t even say that this manual seemed to have been translated into English from another language. I think someone actually wrote it this way.
Since I had 146 pages to wade through, I didn’t appreciate the writer’s inability to get to the point. You tell me whether it was necessary to have these as three distinct steps, “Read instructions…,” “Retain instructions…,” and “Follow instructions…” At that point, the only one I wanted was “Burn instructions…”
Will I ever buy another piece of electronics—yes, but not from this company.