Last Sunday, my boyfriend was trying to setup a universal remote control that he wanted to use with their television. The remote control came with a manual, but it wasn’t really useful. The manual failed to use numbers correctly. The manual did not use any numbers to imply order in the steps. At the same time, the manual also had so many numbers listed as codes that the users should try to setup their remote control. Each brand listed has more than five codes. The users needed to try and see which one would work.
Numbers, like words, are also tools in communicating. When numbers are used correctly, they can enhance our documents. Numbers allow us to create and observe order. Numbers help us create a more obvious flow in our documents. We can see this when we use page numbers, numbered lists, and graphs.
Numbers are helpful in analysis. Numbers are called the language of business. Business people make their decisions based on what the numbers tell them.
As technical communicators, we need more than using words. It would also be to our advantage if we learn how to effectively use numbers.
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