Devoted to technical writing and technical writers

A Technical University of Eindhoven study just discovered a fact that consumers have long known. A lot of the electronic gizmos that they've been purchasing are too complicated to use. 20 minutes seems to be the average time when a user's patience runs out and the product is returned to the store.

The lesson here for technical writers is that we need to continually work at simplifying the instructions for end users. The more important lesson for product manufacturers is that your budget item for technical writers is not a luxury, but a necessity. Clearly, your product designers cannot write their own user manuals.