Customer service shouldn't begin when you have a problem. It should start when a product is built, so that you don't have to futz around on the Web or wait on hold to get answers. One form of that service is good product design. Another is a great manual.

A what? As hardware and software grow dizzyingly more complicated, the manual--if any--now amounts to a scrap of tissue. The online help that supposedly replaces it inevitably runs out of information just as you close in on what you need to know.

Back in 1982, my first IBM PC--with 64KB of memory, a 4.77-MHz 8088 processor, and DOS--came with loose-leaf manuals that were boxed in linen and full of useful examples. My new 1-GHz Dell Pentium III came with its own box of documentation, but no linen and not much information--even if you count a grand total of ten pages on Microsoft Office 2000 that tout new features but offer virtually no details on how they actually work.

A Vicious Circle

Documentation is getting worse because companies treat it the way they do customer service--as a cost center. Their miserly policies push expenses out to the users. It's a vicious circle: Companies refuse to spend a nickel more than they have to for documentation; faced with useless help, customers learn not to bother with it; and after discovering from surveys and focus groups that nobody uses the manuals, companies make them even worse.

That merry-go-round sends users to sources that actually explain things. Since Microsoft makes money selling books designed to fill the gaping holes in its abysmal manuals, it's no wonder some ugly adjectives characterize documentation circa 2001:

Unspecific. To cut costs, vendors release one-size-fits-all docs to cover 17 similar but not identical models. Before you can use the manual, you need to figure out which facts apply to the product you have--assuming the information is there at all. Want a challenge? Try to get details on the particular CD-RW or DVD drive the computer maker stuck into your machine.

Immovable. Several things are wrong with manuals meant to be read on computer screens. How do you proceed when you need information on what to do when your machine won't boot? Since my computer screen doesn't face my printer or scanner, it's not exactly easy to read online documentation while I'm fiddling with peripherals' front panels. The latest affront to common sense comes from Kyocera, which delivers the detailed manual for its nifty new Palm-based Smartphone on CD-ROM. Maybe you're supposed to bring along a laptop whenever you use the phone.

Incomplete. You need two basic pieces of information to get a home networking gateway to work: the proper settings for your broadband provider, and those for Windows networking. Unless you have experience with networks, you have little chance of getting the settings right from the meager info the ISPs and Microsoft supply. Yet not one of the gateways I've tried offers any real help in these two essential areas. Listen up, manufacturers: Decent documentation might well reduce the number of returns you get from people who simply can't figure out how to set up your product.

Unusable. Professional indexing by a human being has become a quaint concept. At best, you can expect to get full-text searching in an online document, but that's a poor substitute for a real index. More often, though, you get a travesty generated by some half-bright indexing program--or no index at all.

Unreal. How many times have you followed step-by-step directions that were flat-out wrong? If you're lucky, the Readme file or an errata sheet will point out some of the howlers. Better idea: Manufacturers should get the documentation right in the first place, particularly when it's in online form.

The need for documentation grows more acute as consumer products go digital and inherit the complexity of PCs. Much of the problem is poor design: You shouldn't have to read a manual just to dope out some simple function of a VCR or coffeemaker.

But you do. Manuals for those devices stink, too, but at least they don't come on CD-ROM--so far.

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