We’re not alone in thinking that user manuals are stuck in the past. Over on the “I’d Rather Be Writing” blog, technical writer Tom Johnson examines the widening gap between how user manuals are presented today, and how modern consumers chose to obtain information.

In short, manual publishers are still churning out 200-page tomes and help files that look, according to Tony Self of HyperWrite, “the same as they did 15 years ago”, while customers are consuming information as tweets, wall posts, RSS feeds and a thousand other forms of abbreviation.

I think he’s hit the nail on the head.

This is exactly what we’re trying to address with doQer, although Tom outlines the problem more succinctly than I ever could, and indeed his post has given us further food for thought on improvements and new features that we could add to doQer.

The way forward, according to Ellis Pratt of writing firm CherryLeaf, is for manual publishers to begin “managing the diversity of information”. That’s a message we’ve taken to heart, and is behind a number of new feature ideas we’re mulling over.

The first commenter on Tom’s post, Febio Cevasco, also suggests some more solutions, which we’re already implementing with doQer:

“Allow readers to embed comments and feedback in documentation, which should then be sent to the authors”

This is one of the key features of doQer that we’ve already implemented for every manual.

“Improve accessiblity. Default search options in CHM and PDF are pathetic if compared even to traditional fulltext search. There’s also often no way to tag content effectively beyond a hierarchy”

doQer uses manuals in an open format, and allows search and instant conversion into various formats.

Be more integrated with the product (in case of software).

This is a broad demand, but doQer certainly increases the potential for product integration. For example, software programs can link directly to relevant sections of information stored within doQer.

Tom Johnson replies that “regarding the ability to embed comments and feedback in documentation, I thought this would be a bigger hit than my experience has shown”, so it will be interesting to see how it pans out on doQer. Either way, Tom’s post, and the comments it elicited, has given us plenty to think about.

Picture Credit: Flickr user peterme.