Find a technical document and assess it?

Locate an owners manual for a consumer product, such as a coffee maker, bicycle, or hair dryer. In a memo to your instructor, discuss two or three decisions the writers and designers of the manual appear to have made to address audience-related factors, purpose related factors, and document-related factors. For instance, if the manual is printed only in English, the writers and designers perhaps decided that they didnt have the resources to create versions in other languages. Does your audience have a sufficient understanding of your subject to follow a thorough conversation, or do you need to restrict the subject matter, the level of technical depth, or the style of graphics you employ? Do you want to confirm or alter the attitudes or assumptions your audience has about your subject? Will how you write be influenced by how your audience utilizes your content or by the setting in which they use it? Should you deliver the content in more than one language depending on how well-versed your audience is in English?

Do they share your cultural presumptions about things like the necessity of providing details or the best way to structure the document, or do you need to change your writing style to accommodate a new set of presumptions? Does your target audience include those with needs in terms of vision, hearing, movement, or cognitive ability?