BTT: Manual Labour Redux

From Booking Through Thursday:

Following up last week's question about reading writing/grammar guides, this week, we're expanding the question....

Scenario: You've just bought some complicated gadget home . . . do you read the accompanying documentation? Or not?

Do you ever read manuals?

How-to books?

Self-help guides?

Anything at all?

That's a good one. No, in general I don't read instruction manuals for gadgets, at least not before I start using them. I might browse through them later, as reading instructions usually leads to finding out some interesting new features. Usually, though, I only refer to the manuals when there's a problem to fix and troubles to shoot.

I don't read much self-help either - though I just received a review copy of David Allen's Getting Things Done which I suppose counts as self-help. That's certainly interesting, and I just read Web Copy That Sells, too - so I do read how-to books. I've read plenty of programming language manuals and other computer books.

So, I suppose it depends. Most gadgets are done well enough that using them without reading manuals is easy, and often the manuals are rather dull. Nokia cell phone manuals are a prime example: they seem to just explain the obvious, and if you do have a real problem, they're completely useless. A good manual can be a pleasure to read, but it's a rare pleasure.