Huge manuals, often written in English and Spanish, come with almost every product. The new administration could save trees, reduce trash, reduce costs and improve the economy by offering companies a trade:
If you put your manual up online and include a web address for it with your product, then you cannot be sued for not including a manual with your product. You, dear company, get shielded from liability.
Many leading companies today already put their manuals up online. For liability reasons they also have to include a copy in the box. The manual for my new Whirlpool washing machine is 76 pages long! Does anyone really read all that. Nope. But trees get cut down to make the manuals anyway. In this digital age, it’s a huge waste of resources.
In the past, the digital divide might have been a reason to have manuals in the box. No longer. The Internet has been in full swing since 1994. Increasingly cell phones make the web available anywhere anytime.
It’s time to start saving the environment and money with this pro business proposal.
- The gang in Washington can figure out the fine print. Here’s a start: Companies would have to agree to post their manuals for 10 years perhaps in a central repository, such as United Laboratories for product manuals, as well as on their own website.
- The manuals would have to be searchable so Google and others could give us instant access to vital product information.
- Companies would have to keep the electronic manuals up to update for product variations.
And so on.
