Why are copy machines so hard to use?  It seems like the basic functions haven’t changed in years, yet every machine is different, and every one is overly complicated.  The relatively new machine at my library used to take 6 pages of directions to operate!  Even something as simple as placing the document on the glass surface to copy took this much direction:  scan from top glass

Because we apparently have no control over how difficult the machine is to use (press “finish” then “start”?!?), I attempted to at least simplify the directions.  Here is the same procedure as above, hopefully improved:

toscan

I used numbers (rather than Roman numerals) that correspond to the pictures on the side because I find that the images integrated into the directions are distracting. I also used simple colors and clearer images that I found from the online copier manual.  These directions are posted on the wall near our copier, so to improve the user experience from afar, I enlarged the text from the nearly-impossible-to-see 12-point font to an-easier-on-the-eyes 18-point and surrounded the words with a lot of white space.  It’s not the perfect solution (that would be magically making the copier more intuitive), but it works a little better than it did.

If you are interested in seeing more of these directions, email me for the Word document.