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PUTTING THE READER BACK IN MANUALS:
COMPUTER MANUALS AND THE
PROBLEMS OF READABILITY
by
Thomas L. Warren
Department of English
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, OK 74078
ABSTRACT
A common myth about aircraft is that the plane is ready to fly
when _the weight of the paper equals the weight of the aircraft.
The paperwork, unfortunately, includes manuals and other
documents. As experience has unfortunately shown, manuals confirm
another generalization: When all else fails, read the manual. The
novice, as well as the experienced user, turns to manuals to
answer questions and solve problems. Various 800 numbers help,
but, in the dark of the night, only the manual is there. This
paper examines manuals from the reader's perspective, beginning
with a review of how humans process information.
It then analyzes
ten sample texts using nine readability formulas, and text
analysis programs. While demonstrating the inherent weaknesses of
readability formulas and text analysis results, the study does
pinpoint some troublesome areas in current PC manuals.
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