How bad are the manuals for video machines really?

Uploaded: 14 April 1997

Video machine manuals are among the most hated objects in the world. and with good reason. a video machine is a very complex technical equipment, and it is to be used by normal consumers. this means, that unless the manual is written by a real expert in how to make user-friendly manuals, - it's trouble!

But how bad are they really?

On 10 march '97 the Danish Sonar Institute made an opinion research for the largest Danish newspaper " Jyllands-Posten ". Sonar asked a sample of 1324 persons representing the danish population above 17 years the following question:

If you have a video machine, and have used the instruction manual: how will you describe the manual?

  1. The worst i have ever seen
  2. Very difficult to understand, but i have seen worse
  3. Difficult to use, but certainly not impossible
  4. No problems
  5. Easy like a dream - an informative linguistic pleasure

Results

PRC has got permission to publish the results on the "user-friendly manuals website".

To read the results, your browser must be capable of showing tables. alternatively, you can download them here as a tabulator separated text file which you can read with any spreadsheet or word processor.

Answers by number in per cent
(sum of 1-5 = 100% per row)		 1 2 3 4 5 %
1-3		 Average
Total for all 7 16 49 27 1 72 3.0
Men by age






  18-29 years 0 18 41 38 3 59 3.3
  30-49 years 5 15 50 30 0 70 3.0
  more than 49 years 10 15 57 18 0 82 2.8
  Men total 5 16 50 28 1 71 3.0
Women by age






  18-29 years 4 15 35 41 5 54 3.3
  30-49 years 6 20 50 24 0 76 2.9
  More than 49 years 12 15 51 21 1 78 2.8
  Women total 8 17 47 26 2 72 3.0
Completed education at age






  14-15 years 10 19 44 26 1 73 2.9
  16-19 years 4 14 52 28 2 70 3.1
Higher education






  Medium level 8 16 50 25 1 74 3.0
  High level 7 22 41 30 0 70 2.9

PRC's comments:

Totally, 72 % of the adult population have severe problems (answers 1-3) with the video manuals, and only 28 % have no problems. Only the young group (18-29 years) shows really significantly less problems with the manuals. The difficulties for men above 49 could reflect, that their wives are leaving the technical stuff to them if they are not technically minded themselves.

If all manuals were on the same low level of user friendliness, there should have been significant differences by education level. as this is not the case, it indicates that most likely the major course for the problems is, that approx. 70 % of the manuals are bad or really bad, and 30 % are acceptable or good.

The data are copyright (c) Sonar, Denmark, 1997.
You are free to forward the results in newspapers, radio or tv if Sonar and Jyllands-Posten, Denmark are mentioned as the source.
All other publication incl. partial publication and tendencies is only permitted after special agreement with Sonar, Denmark, tel: +45-4286 2040.

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