Self-Documentation 001
It’s Monday, so I spent the usual 4:30 pm to 11:30 pm at the Red Cross—working on the comm van before and after the monthly disaster services meeting, discovering yet another reason why it needs to be gutted and begun anew.
I had previously learned the hard way that adding an internal shore power cable wired full-time into the AC panel while there’s still an external shore power inlet, just because the previous custodian couldn’t be bothered to buy the $100 50A 125V to 15A 125V adapter isn’t such a hot idea. Er, actually, the fact that it was a hot idea was exactly the problem! That’s the second time in my life I’ve felt 125 Volts (don’t ask about the first).
Tonight’s lesson was from one of our local OES guys, Jeff Norris, who raised his eyebrows when I explained the pneumatic mast’s control box operation to him. The problem is the fact that the up position–raise–isn’t momentary. Enough TV ENG van crews have electrocuted themselves by raising masts into high-voltage power lines that OSHA mandates that this switch be momentary. And we had to take the control panel apart and trace wiring to discover that the down position did more than just lower the mast—it also keyed a coax relay that switched which antenna went to the 47 MHz radio. This was documented, but not on the switch. It is documented at the radio, which is not visible at the mast control panel.
Both of these problems indicate what I think is a fundamental problem created by those designing physical, electrical, electronic, and software things today. Much of their important operating procedures require reading the manual. There are fundamental UI design issues around how to design things that are intuitive, but the lack of designers placing context-sensitive documentation directly on things is a huge problem that is related to how designers (and their teachers) operate philosophically.
