Technical manuals of the old school were often written at a reading level
that represented several years of education beyond that of the actual user
(Chapanis, 1975). One common fault is that the texts often devoted consid-
erable space to explaining how the machine worked from the machine’s point
of view, with user instructions interspersed at critical points. This format
makes the user’s experience a frustrating hunt for critical information.
A better format would separate the text into two documents. One docu-
ment would contain the technical information that people might use if their
goal was maintenance ...
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