Comments on: Getting my interactive kettle online

By: neville

neville — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:05:15 +0000

That’s a good perspective, Monica, thanks. I agree with your conclusion.

Kettle 2.0 indeed, Lee! Which leads me to Bryan - clearly a North American in talking about “turning on the burner.” Here, we just press a switch as the kettle is plugged in to an electrical outlet.

Now this is a kettle:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008BFTE/202-2075939-8658212

Love the translation, Bryan. That Babelfish does produce interesting results!

By: Bryan Person

Bryan Person — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:55:42 +0000

Sorry, Neville. I simply couldn’t resist a little Altavista Babel Fish translation humo[u]r:

Instructions in English BEFORE putting them through the translator:

How to use your new kettle:
1) Add water
2) Turn on burner to desired heat level
3) Heat water to boil
4) Serve

Instructions in English AFTER translating the above between several languages:

If the buffet, where are new the use you o: 1) in cooking the 4) hornilla of level 3, which wishes, it is connected) the hot water 2) it that the hot water is added to the service

Clear as mud!

I think we know now where those manufacturers go for help before printing their multi-lingual instruction manuals.

By: Lee Hopkins

Lee Hopkins — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 19:38:45 +0000

Could we, in fact, be witnessing the birth of ‘Kettle 2.0′? {grin}

By: Monica

Monica — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:34:40 +0000

Neville…I like your take on urging companies to take their print manuals to an online version. I must admit, a light bulb clicked, in my head, when I read your post. Doing away with print brochures is such an easy concept, yet I never once thought to think of it myself, nor did I ever think of all the benefits and perks that would come along with it.

Using online manuals for electronic devices such as televisions, DVD players, computers, and even kettles, would have a huge impact on our environment. When you stop and think how many electronics we humans purchase and then think of the multiple manuals that comes with every device…that becomes an overwhelming amount of paper that is all going to waste. You said in your post that some electronic devices are now providing up to 6 manuals for one little item. Chances are that at least 5 of those manuals are going to go immediately into the garbage, with number 6 probably not too far behind. I am not one to read any manual from front to back…manufacturers are lucky if I even open it up. But even if a customer decides to keep the manual, they are annoying and are never as helpful one would hope them to be.

With the trend of moving everything into an electronic format, I am all for doing away with print manuals and providing an electronic format. However, I do think that companies that do this will need to provide a clear, easy-to-understand format on their website. Manufactures need to understand that not all of their customers are computer-savvy, so their online manual needs to be extremely user-friendly.

In general, I think in near future we will continue to see a shift in more environment-friendly, electronic based manuals and brochures.