About Writing User Guides

You need to write an easy-to-follow user manual for a complex product. There may be dozens of functions, hundreds of tasks, and definite processes that must be followed.

You are faced with the task of identifying these tasks, organizing them into logical units, and finally of writing the information in an easy-to-follow manner.

Well written manuals result in reduced support costs and lower product return rates. Clear, well written manuals can help your organization to:

Our user manuals feature:

• Attractive and user-friendly format.
• Easy to read, and easy to follow instructions.
• Tailored to fit user requirements.
• Technically accurate illustrations.
• Clearly defined process flows that lead the user through their tasks.

Tools We Use

We are skilled in the use of a broad range of documentation tools including:

• Adobe Framemaker
• Adobe Acrobat
• In Design
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Power Point
• Microsoft Excel
• Visio Professional
• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Illustrator
• Macromedia Fireworks
• Microsoft Project

See Our Work with Hardcopy Manuals for more details about our hardcopy projects where we used these tools.

Our Methodology

Our hardcopy documentation projects follow our standard and proven documentation processes.

Our resulting documentation is delivered in a format that is pleasing to the eye, provides easy access to information, and that is written in an easy-to-understand structure and format.

Our Goals

We work with our client to identify the specific goals to be met by our user manuals. For example, client may require one or more of the following:

• Comprehensive indexing of topics to allow for easy access to critical information.
• Consistent use of terminology.
• Clear definition of industry standard terms.
• Ability to convert hardcopy content for online usage - either into web based HTML or into PDF.
• Clear concise English that engages the reader, and encourages understanding of complex ideas.
• Cross references to related topics to reduce redundancy of information.
• Easy to maintain, easy to manage organization, styles, and templates.