In my long and glorious career writing user manuals, I’ve adopted many rules to ensure that my work is absolute top-quality. They’re kind of like the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition in Star Trek, only my rules aren’t numbered, and I usually only remember any given rule after I’ve violated it. So in actual practice, their actual application is much like, “Oh, crap, not again,” followed by panicked scrambling.
Examples:
- Never publish first-thing in the morning. Your brain in the morning is as agile a new-born deer wobbling around on spindly legs: you’re going to fall flat frequently and often. In practice, this means making such wonderful screw-ups as publishing the Portuguese version with a German cover.
- Never say “no hurry” to your subject matter expert. If you ask an SME a question and imply that they have at least a week to get back, you will never hear from them again. Instead, tell them you need their feedback before the end of the day, and when they complain, grudgingly accept the next day instead. But before noon. Is this deceptive? Yes. Of course it is.
- Never skip the spell-chick. Even when the pressure is high, always check the spelling; always scan the copy for typos. You really don’t want to publish a manual in which the product name is misspelled both on the title page and the running header.
I was reminded of these rules this morning while making coffee — a procedure that has its own similar set of rules. For example, don’t start the coffee machine without an urn or cup under it. I’ve broken that rule a few times. From this morning: a coffee press produces the best coffee when you use boiling water, not cold tap water. It also helps if you have ground coffee in it. My mug of cold tap water was refreshing, but not what I expected.