I recently upgrade my Adobe Creative Suite Professional to the new CS3 version (mainly for it's Intel-Binary performance on my MacPro) and I found an option on the www page that disturbed me, but yet I found it morbidly fascinating. There was an additional US$24 to request a user guide. This struck me as odd... Here was a major software developer, offering to sell a product that is arguably one of the most complex application suites ever developed, with no printed manual by default. I was astounded. The nominal fee of only US$24 was a complete bargain, as the books themselves, in five tomes, weighed in at nearly 8kg, and take up a solid 20 centimeters of width. There is a wealth of information in the books, and they are very well made, perfect-bound manuals. I thought about this for a while, and I concluded that I could not imagine how someone would purchase a $1,700 software suite and not purchase the $24 user guide.
It caused me to think about a few other implications however. The main implication to me was that Adobe has seen that most users of software applications leave the book shrink-wrapped in the box in their eagerness to install the software and play with it, and learn from experience and trial-and-error. In the early days of graphics applications, this was a more realistic learning method, as one could mouse-over most tools, and determine their role or operation, but modern applications are far more complex. It also meant to me that perhaps people actually do use online-help.
When online or in-application help was first developed in the early '90s, it was pretty much useless. One could determine a few key facts about the software, or maybe even a perfunctory search dialogue, but the results or content of these early help guides were never detailed enough to allow actually using the online help as reference or tutoring, and it was simply not realistic to use it as such. The software user-base came to see online/inline help as useless for all but the most rudimentary of conundrums, and that the reference for detailed information would be deferred to the printed user guide. There is even a long-standing terminology amongst software developers known as RTFM, which will not take too much imagination about what the user should be doing as "Read the xxxxxxx manual."
Definite trend
Recently however, there has been a trend of all-inclusive indexed, and searchable help content in modern graphics applications. While many veteran users of desktop prepress applications may still see the online help to be marginally useless, and prefer an actual printed user guide, the newer generation of prepress and publishing production workers see online help as their main means with which to determine software function and behavior. I see a definite trend amongst my travels towards those whom look to online help as a first-choice option. Perhaps because online help is getting better, but also perhaps because a new generation of textual information consumers are comfortable with the computer as the repository and the delivery method for reference information. Why would Adobe not include a manual by default, when it is a mere 0.7 per cent of the cost? Perhaps there is market research they have done that justifies it, or perhaps the user-base requested it, but irrelevant, it is something that we need to watch. Why would a printed manual not be specified as part of the Bill of Materials in this suite of application tools?
I think it would be equally fascinating to see how many people order the Creative Suite, and do not order the printed manual, but I was unable to find the proper person to ask about that question.
Equally fascinating was the offering by Adobe for a downloadable version of the software, instead of an actual box shipped to the user. This is another important implication, which is that of a user, purchasing a major software application suite, and not having any physical assets as a result. For years, shareware developers have been releasing software as a download and subsequent licensing algorithm via e-mail, but Adobe CS3 is a major application suite... for download? So, not only can a user purchase the CS3 with no manual, but also no box shipped to them! (A 3.4 Gigabyte download) I would also be fascinated to see the demographics of how many clients purchase this option in lieu of a shipped box.
Obscene complexity
I am very pleased with my upgrade, and once again, I am astounded at the enhanced capabilities of these newly updated applications. These programmes, as other modern applications, are the result of thousands upon thousands of hours of finding the best means with which to take desktop computers, and make them print prep, plan, and production platforms. The user guides of my 1.0 versions of Photoshop, or Quark XPress, are leaflets compared to the tomes I now have on my shelf in reference to my latest tools. With this power of modern applications, comes obscene complexity, and further need to have ready access to the details of their operation. Maybe I am just old-school, but I gladly paid the extra $24 for the outstanding printed documentation. There is something very satisfying about a nicely printed, and well designed book, and the smell of offset ink, so yes... I bought the manual. (grin)
