When Do You Read the Instructions?

An anonymous reader asks: "I originally submitted this as a poll, but the answers I'm guessing, were way too long. However, I would like to ask the crowd at Slashdot: When do you read the instructions?" "So when do you reach for that instruction booklet? Do you:

• ...research on the internet, in magazines and also pestering friends who own one, so you're an expert before buying said item?
  
  
• ...carefully read the box and all of the instructions even before unwrapping the protective plastic?
  
  
• ...study the instructions and the quickstart guide?
• ...refer to the instructions and study the quickstart guide?
  
  
• ...lose the instructions when throwing the packaging away, but study the quickstart guide hoping for the best?
  
  
• ...look at quickstart guide when it's not obvious how to turn it on?
  
  
• ...frantically search the instruction book after letting the 'magic smoke' out of your appliance hoping you'll find somewhere saying it's suppose to do that?
  
  
• ...after it's been smashed to pieces with a hammer?"

Comments

Importance...

[megaversal]

Depends on how important it is... if it's for my servers that thousands of users at work need to access, you can be sure as hell I read the release notes.

If I'm just playing around... that's it, I play around and look at the manual if there's a problem.

I never

[Konster]

I never read manuals, but I'd be willing to start if they started putting pictures of naked women in them.

I also use Windows...no manuals needed! Plug and Play! USB! I never buy stuff from companies that don't have an 800 tech support number. Let THEM read the manual to me!

Re:I never

[Lamieur]

Some of us are too shy to call vibrator-vagina-maker's tech-support... I admire you.

I'm confused

[MyGirlFriendsBroken]

Are there devices out there which are not operated by a hammer?

Re:I'm confused

[Stanza]

Originally posted by MyGirlFriendsBroken (599031)
Are there devices out there which are not operated by a hammer?

No wonder your girlfriend is broken.

Difference between boys and girls

[harikiri]

I remember reading somewhere that the reason boys and girls differ in their computer expertise (on average) is due to the following:

• Boy jumps onto the computer, plays with it till he breaks some part of it, and is forced to figure out how to fix it.
• Girl, terrified of breaking the computer, demands to be shown what to do before using it.

Note: Yes this is a broad generalisation, but this is slashdot.

Because the guys jump into using it so quickly, they learn faster through trial and error. The pace of learning with girls is a lot slower due to their desire to know how stuff works first.

This has parallels with "reading instructions". From the large sample of friends that I have, very few of them (male) ever choose to read the instructions.

Personally, I'm affronted that I even need to read the instructions (especially for consumer electronic items). In this day and age, electronic items (VCR/DVD/camcorder/digicam) should be usable by anyone who spends 60 seconds playing with it (think iPod). In short, we should not ever need to read instructions.

Re:Difference between boys and girls

[david duncan scott]

I'm not so sure that they learn faster. They may pick up particular tasks more quickly, but they may also miss (I know I have) whole areas of function simply because they haven't stumbled into them yet.

Reading the manual gives you the CD-ROM drive. Playing with things gives you the cup holder.

on the throne

[kcornwell]

I read instructions for nearly everything I buy while I'm on the can. The time required is usually enough to scan for anything important or interesting. The technical specs are almost always interesting, and sometimes I miss a feature that is not obvious in the product (think cell phones).

I know it is time to read the instructions

[notcreative]

when the object has caught fire.

As my sig always used to say....

[Verne]

Instructions should be read first, or not at all. Anything else is admitting defeat.

My 1/50th $

[Fubar420]

Figured I'd share this one, since it's relevant to the topic at hand.

I just bought myself a new digital camcorder, all the bells and whistles, natch. So I record a few friends and I outing to buy an XMas tree, and a few other things. So often, especially with complex equipment, how to do something is not always immediately clear;

Want to turn on night-mode or light assist? Oh, you need to switch the camera to program mode, go into the menu and select the moon icon.

Want to take still pictures? Move the dongle to the top, and press the record button. Cant do that? Oh yeah, we ship you a card full of sample images so you have to erase it first.

You want to erase it? Just flip the dongle back to the bottom, choose picture review, and then format card.

Now, its time to transfer the video off. Well, the camera has USB2.0 and FireWire (dv) output, but only includes the USB cable. Well, no matter, my mac's in the shop anyhow. So I plug in the USB cable to a windows box I found collecting dust, since I couldnt find USB drivers for the camera in linux.

So when I plug the camera in, windows just stares at me. I read through the quick start manual, and it says flip to "picture" mode instead of "movie" mode. Seems odd to me, but whatever.

So I flip it, and the software comes up, and says pick some pictures to download. Sure enough, lots of sample images, but no mention of getting my movie off.

So I go back to the manual.

And then, several hours of reading it later (could they have cut the esperanto section and included an index PLEASE???) I find a small one line comment hidden at the bottom of the page that discusses hooking my camera up to ANOTHER CAMERA.

That note?

"You will need to purchase a seperate DV cable to transfer video from the camera"

So yeah, I play first, and then read the manual, and then post on slashdot how shitty the manuals are :-)