A Picture is not always worth 1000 words

Laid my first laminate floor over the weekend - the click together type. No written instructions, just a series of IKEA style pictures. At the beginning it shows a tongue against the wall with a big cross through it. Clearly 'do not start with the tongue facing the wall' So started with the groove against the wall which is just the way you do it with solid wood floor boards.

Followed all the other instructions but found it much harder going than it implied - it was not possible to just click the boards together because the edge of the new board had to go under the existing board so needed the services of a gentle persuader to slide the board along. Ended up constructing the whole room length in one piece before attaching the whole lot in one go.

I now realise that the picture with the tongue against the wall and a cross through it does not mean 'do not start with the tongue against the wall' but 'DO start with the tongue against the wall but do not put it right up to the wall' and that it should have all been laid the other way around. A single sentence would have been a lot clearer.

Are their customers really too dim to be able to read a set of instructions. Nothing stopping the manufacturers including pictures to illustrate the text if that would help.

Andrew

Reply to
Andrew May
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Multilingual and therefore marginally cheaper...

Reply to
Bob Eager

Putting together a corner desk from IKEA a couple of years ago, I was impressed by the text-free instructions. I particularly liked the fact that a key stages of the assembly they had clearly marked parts that could be confused with a picture and a big cross through them, which in my case meant I double checked alignment before proceeding.

Reply to
Jethro_uk

They managed to print the 'feature list' saying how great it was in god-knows how many different languages. Why not the important parts?

Reply to
Andrew May

So it can be universally misunderstood :-/

Reply to
fred

Exactly.

Reply to
Bob Eager

That's to help sell it... you had already paid - job done!

Reply to
John Rumm

Well sounds like the picture was unclear. I wonder, did the person looking at the picture actually understand what was needed when they approved it. Its almost as nonsensical as the song you quoted. If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can't I paint you. What?

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

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