Sep 19, 2016 After which, you need to break the technical information down and explain it in simple words. Make the Manual as basic as possible. Classify and organize the information. In the process of making the Manual, organize the information in order of priority. Organize the content in a logical and coherent manner. Make an outline of the Manual. The instructional manual is an excellent application in the field of technical writing. A good instruction manual will tell the user everything he needs to know to be able to carry out a given task correctly, efficiently and safely.
“As my company’s sole technical writer, I maintain and update over 2,000 pages of user guides for about twenty software applications. Since at least 1998, all help and tutorials at our company were published using Doc-to-Help, a Word-based system that didn’t support embedded videos or PDFs. In early 2018, I spent two months researching alternatives, and knew Manula was “the one” about five minutes into the free trial. My instincts were right. Everybody in the company loves our new user guides, and so do our customers.
Manula is super easy to use. The few times I needed support, I got a fast, accurate reply; and the solution was always very simple. This was such a welcome change from our experience with Doc-to-Help support. Nov 22, 2019 A user manual is a formal writing piece with a specific structure, and should be written by someone who is intimately familiar with the product such as a technical writer or the product designer. Writing an effective user manual requires knowing who is going to be using the product, then writing it with these users in mind. Think like a user. When writing a manual, you need to put on a “user’s hat” and think like a user. You should have a good understanding of your users so you can understand the information they need to know, their background, and their knowledge of the product. Once you think like a user, you can write content that the users need to know. Drawbacks: they’re appropriate only for a user documentation registry – they have nothing to do with the actual creation of a user instruction manual. To make it easier for you to make a choice on the best option in your case, we have created a table comparing the functions of all these tools.
Our Word-based documents were more technical than most: almost 100% tables-embedded-into-other-tables and complex layers of numbered and bulleted lists. It has been time-consuming (but fun) to convert our first thousand pages of help into Manula’s Textile-based format. The effort has been well worth it! Our documentation is getting far more views and longer visits than it ever did in the old format. We don’t have numbers yet, but I suspect it is also leading to fewer support tickets, freeing up time for our sales staff.