viz.

The need for helpful, visual instructions has been covered in many other places. However, I recently bought some “assembly-required” products, and the instructions that accompanied them demonstrated how visuals can be helpful in transcending language barriers.

Here are a few pages from the instructions that accompanied my new external hard drive enclosure:

Though they are not as painful (or haiku-like) as this gem, they would have been pretty useless to me if I was unfamiliar with the hardware. (I’m still scratching my head as to why I would need to "whop" the drive.)

In stark contrast to the tortured translation of these instructions, the assembly guide that accompanied the new TV stand I bought from Ikea over the weekend were utterly simple.

These instructions contain very few actual words--just numbers and diagrams. Notice the elegant simplicity of the instructions on how to find customer support:

I assume that Ikea has had to develop these visual instructions in order to deal with that fact that they sell their products in at least 37 different countries. Even if we allow for some overlap between countries, translating written instructions into that many different languages would be a difficult and time-consuming. This is just another example of the advantages of visual communication in situations that bridge language-barriers.