How to design better instructions for manuals to create, build or assemble a furniture or product.
We can find several examples of good manual instructions in a range of several products and furniture catalogues.
One of the first examples we find is in the building of an already designed object, everybody is familiar with Ikea instructions, we find the instructions on the product page, to download in PDF. You can search for any product in the search bar and find the assembly instructions. Here I attach the instructions from the IKEA PS 2017, a normal and commodity armchair considered inside PS but not signed by a product designer
The instructions manual is as ikea simple, direct and combine perspectives with marks and signs and the image with the characteristic character.
One of the best examples is the instructions manual for Can Sofa, designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, the name can is that you can, you can make it, can i do this? don’t be afraid, it will work, finally is one the most difficult objects to assemble, and you need to be very careful and precise and follow the different steps to be able.
The manual starts with a first page that introduces you the number of elements you need as a guide, here I have to say that the pillow are so syntetic and could have a sort of textile pattern to understand. The instructions follow some numbers with text that descrive the operation, red marks and pointers guide the process.
The manual has a detail that sugest to assemble the object on the box that has been used to send the furniture, this is something very important cause sometimes during the assemble you can grate the metal tubes. The instructions combine images and perspectives of the object together with hands, arms to suggest the operations.
The Instructions manual is like a catalogue of 30 pages with especial green paper that embrace the sheets. the manual give an image of quality after spending the amount of money the sofa cost. Another Hay furniture design is the CH30, the manual is a piece of enginiering.
We can find thousands of manuals in furniture design catalogues of the most important manufacturers, The french manufacturer Habitat, has his own rustic style, we can see this manual of the Drio Dining Table, a first sheet with the product and a small icon that show how many people you need to assemble the product.
Famous Manuals like Autoprojetazzione from Enzo Mari are simple maps, like a technical map that shows the furniture piece with 3 views as normalized and standard maps, but with an interesting small table that is linked using letters though the pieces(A,B,C…) showing dimentions of each kind of piece to allow to make a command to a wood supplier.
The projects of Open Design also needs of instructions to communicate the “How to”, we can find amateur examples in pages as instructables, like the modular chair, with a video or an exploted view suggest more or less how the pieces will join.
The furniture designer Marc Morro in the project of pieces for a School for Foundawtion in Africa, designed the whole furniture for the school: chairs, desks, tables, stools, cabinets, shelves, blackboards, hangers, boxes and a really long motivating etc. The different pieces have some instructions pages that resume how to build the furniture in Africa.
