Making manuals fun

Let's take the whole damn ad/marketing budget and move it over to product manuals and support. Let's put our money where our users are. If we're in it for the short term, then sure--it makes sense to do everything to get a new user, while doing as little as possible once we've got them. But if we're really in it for the long haul--for customer retention and loyal users--then shouldn't we be using all that graphic design and pro writing talent for the people we care about the most? Our users?

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/08/why_marketing_s.html


This post is extremely interesting because it talks about not only what the problem is with manuals, this quote outlines how and why we should go about making them more interesting. I found this passage to be interesting because i have often thought about similar ideas, why large portions of money and resources are devoted to certain parts of design, but other parts, which are often more important, are neglected. I think that in order to changed this, people who design products have to realize the potential manuals have and how they could be used to improve the user experience and build customer loyalty.