documentation nightmares: car seats

I was going to make this post 3 years ago, but didn't. Now I have another opportunity.

I consider myself technically adept at mechanical things. 

• Building Ikea furniture? Easy and fast - rarely do I need the directions.
  
• Fix my car? Sure, I'm at home under the hood and under the chassis.
  
• Soldering circuits? Been doing that since 6th grade.
  
• Fear of disassembling anything? Nope not really.
  

So you would think that installing a car seat would pose no problem, especially after I've had experience, and considering I am a documentation professional. Well, no.

Certainly you want absolutely 0 margin of error for your car seat installation. This is my family's 3rd car seat - the one we purchased this weekend was a Booster / forward-facing-harness seat. And like I always do, I stuck to the directions. And that's where I failed.

Here's the problem as I see it: The pocket-sized, 35-page guide includes procedures for:

• Booster seat operation
  
• Harness seat operation
  

And attaching the seat to the vehicle via:

• LATCH
  
• Seatbelt with shoulder strap
  
• Seatbelt without shoulder strap
  

So that's potentially 6 scenarios. In addition, the text warns of procedures not to follow that may only be applicable to the scenario you are not following. It's confusing, not reassuring, and highly annoying. 

My guess is they cram all this information into a little booklet to stay attached to the car seat, and the lack of clear directions is probably designed so they can CYA, legally.

I don't object to including the product manual as is, but they should publish more refined instructions in a larger format. A nice 2' x 3' poster with line graphics that tells you each step you must explicitly follow would be a great start. In fact, one poster-sized document per scenario would be very good.  Personally I think the best solution would be for their documentation to interface with a database of car specifications. You could go to the website, choose the car seat model, choose your car model, and their system would automatically generate the documentation you need.

(Image courtesy of  dfb)