wrote:

"We found the manufacturer's instructions to be difficult to
understand, but a call to tech support helped us sort things out".

As a field sales guy, my comment to the product engineer was always
the same when a new product was to be introduced and an O&M manual
needed to be written.

The conversation would go something like this:

Me: Are you either married or have a S/O?

P/E: Yes.

Me: Are they technically trained?

P/E: No.

Me: Good.

When you are finished writing the manual. give it to your wife and/or
S/O and have them read it.

If they can understand it, you have written a good manual.

If not, you have work to do.

All of which begs the question, What ever happened to tech manual
writers, much less tech manuals?

Lew