US/UK Lexicon

The pictorial instructions cut across language barriers which is essential nowadays. I have a problem getting enough appropriate pictures in our instructions, though we do have a lot of words as well. Which again is a problem with engineers in general and especially when they don't speak 'BBC English'.

I have never been able to understand why people needed the written part of the Mecanno instructions. when there were plenty of pictures.

We used to have to provide detail maintenance instructions for the RAF. If you have a box in front of you with the cover held on by ten screws why on earth do you need to be told to undo the screws to take off the cover. What you really always need is the type, thread and length of the screws for when you lose some. Next time you get in a plane just think of it, the maintenance was done by a bloke who is so thick he needs to be told to take the screws out to get the cover off.

Bang on cue an example of another kind of machine "translation" at work: I use someone else's computer for ten minutes and their undisabled (unlike on my computer) autocorrect/autocomplete function obviously doesn't recognize or like the adverb "somewhat".

One of my work friends has the surname Whitehouse which my autocorrect insists on changing to Whorehouse. Fortunately, I've caught it each time before hitting the send button.

Having had to amend assembly instructions in ten languages, only one of which I speak, I have a lot of sympathy for the authors of Chinglish instructions. (Translation came from the marketing budget, and the sales director wasn't willing to sign off any expense for a quality improvement - I guess some things never change).

Brian

You have to know the expected state of knowledge of your target audience. You have to tell them what they need to know and point out what they need to check they've got right. You don't want to jam their brain with noise and make it hard for them to filter out the signal.

Bazyle, if you took a moment to think about it instead of pouring scorn on people you would see that the reason for listing the obvious is not because the person doing the work is thick , but because it is necessary to have the work split into quite precise and unequivocal language describing the maintainance process. Within large organisations where more than one person might work on a task and part way through the procedure may be replaced by others, the work that has been done by each individual has to be certified, so that in the event of any failure or damage of the component or of the system of which it is a part, which may be a very heavy and fast aircraft, missile, bomb or critical communication; it it easier determine the cause and possibly responsibility for that failure.

Apart from the legal aspects, there are very many aviation components where the internal components are assembled by the manufacturer in such a way that it is imperative that it must be dismantled in a precise order to prevent damage to the internals or possible injury to the operator. This is particularly so with military and other public and civil organisations equipment because it is taxpayers money that is involved and are everyone in those organisations are, quite rightly, held legally responsible for the use of it.

Trevor

It may well be obvious that

Lack of precise instructions for aircraft engineers was involved in the reverse fitting of a helicopter tail rotor! The aircraft had been in service for over 10 years before the problem occured and the result was quite exciting!! A similar lack of specifics produced the failure to lubricate the main rotor head on the same type - even more exciting but, through pure luck, non-fatal. Give me over-verbose instructions every time on aircraft, please ... and dedicated people who read and comply!!

rgds

Bill

But this can also lead to problems with people not reading work instructions simply because they are over done and too precise. In a previous life I used to write work instructions in an electronics environment and it was always a fine line between writing something that would enable someone walking in off the street to understand and going to the opposite extreme e.g. "pick up a number 2 Pozidrive screwdriver in your right hand and using a fastener from bin xxx, attach bracket Y from bin abc and tighten to x Nm". OK, I could go on but I think you get the picture. Maybe I was just unlucky in not having the dedicated people who read and comply.

Phil

That's why I say you need to know your audience and aim at the balance of interest and current knowledge you think they have. If they ain't got neither they ain't fit for the job.

No need for that...we aircraft certifiers are so "thick" we wouldn't figure that out...so they gave us the part numbers of the screws straight away...

Edited By ChrisB on 24/01/2019 19:03:23

Neil,

Adrian Mole had not been "born" when the Mole wrench was invented.

Just hope that the lad had a "bob a knob" royalty on every one ever made. If he did, he would be richer than James Dyson!

Sadly, probably someone probably gave him a hundred quid for the patent.

Howard