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- How to Write a User Manual (That’s Easy to Follow) | YourDictionary
How to Write a Great User Manual in 12 Steps.
The table of content provides navigation to the reader and helps them go to a particular topic quickly. Since customers are not looking to read your manual from start to finish and are just looking to solve a particular problem or learn about a topic, adding a table of contents helps them save time and effort. Using a document editor that automatically creates a table of contents around headings and subheadings is a great way to go about it. Instruction manuals are well, boring. They are filled with text and are not very engaging.
On top of that, visuals are processed 60, times faster in the brain than text. Making your online manual interactive with how-to videos and audio instructions can be a great way to enhance engagement and help customers or clients effectively.
Keep on reading! Therefore, always ask employees, especially those who are unfamiliar with the product or have not worked with you in creating the instruction manual, to give their honest feedback and suggestions on how to make it more effective.
Steps Included. After learning about all the key points to include in your instruction manuals, we know you are itching to get on with the work of creating one. This is why we would like to introduce you to Bit, the smartest document collaboration tool to create instruction manuals and other digital workplace documents for free! Bit is a new age cloud-based document collaboration tool that helps teams create, manage and track workplace documents including-.
Bit helps you make sure your instruction manuals are more than just plain boring text and images. Bit will automatically turn it into a live visual web link or embed content that lives on your workplace documents! Just copy-paste the URL of your content on a blank line of the document editor and hit enter.
Bit then generates a live preview of your digital content within your document. Imagine how rich and interactive your instruction manuals can become! Not sure how Bit can help you write the perfect instruction manual? Bit has a minimal document editor which allows you to write your instruction manual without the distraction of unnecessary buttons and tabs. You have to research content, come up with an outline, add awesome visuals, and create an overall interactive experience for your readers.
Doing this amount of work alone can be pretty daunting and time-consuming. Thus, Bit allows you to work with your peers to get the instruction manual ready as quickly as you can. Working in teams also allows you to brainstorm ideas together and get your content and design people together in a single workplace. Bit allows teams to collaborate together, give real-time feedback, suggest changes and get work done quicker. Most importantly, say goodbye to back and forth emails.
All the other document editors limit your creativity by only allowing you to incorporate text and static images in your document. Since instruction manuals are long-form professional documents, having to read so much text can be dull and ineffective.
Related Articles. Method 1. All rights reserved. This image may not be used by other entities without the express written consent of wikiHow, Inc. Start your Works Cited entry with the title of the manual in italics. Ordinarily, you would start any Works Cited entry with the name of the author. However, manuals typically don't have a named author, so you would start with the title of the manual instead. Use title case, capitalizing the first word as well as all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs.
Place a period at the end of the title. Provide publication information for the manual. After the title, include the name of the company or organization that produced the manual.
Place a comma after the company or organization's name, then list the year the manual was published. If you accessed a print copy of the manual, place a period after the year. Use a comma instead of a period if you accessed the manual online. Apple Inc. Close with the URL if you accessed the manual online. Even if the manual is available in print, if you accessed it online, your readers should be directed to the same copy that you looked at.
Use the title for in-text citations. Your in-text citation should point your reader to the Works Cited entry.
Since you started your Works Cited entry with the title, use the title in a parenthetical citation at the end of any sentence in which you paraphrase or quote information from the manual. If the manual is paginated, include the page number where the referenced material can be found. For example, you could write: "According to the iPad User Guide, Apple iPads have the capacity to replace a laptop for most basic uses. Method 2. Start your Reference List entry with the name of the corporate entity.
In APA style, the corporate entity that produced the manual is considered the author of the manual, so that name is the first element of your Reference List entry.
Place a period after the name of the corporate entity. Provide the year the manual was published. Type a single space after the period following the name of the corporate entity, then type the year the manual was published in parentheses. Place a period after the closing parenthesis. Include the title of the manual in italics. Type the title of the manual in sentence case, capitalizing only the first word of the title and any proper nouns. Place a period at the end of the title unless the manual has a subtitle.
For subtitles, place a colon after the title and then type the subtitle in sentence case with a period at the end. Include the full URL for the manual that you accessed. With the 7th edition, released in October of , you no longer need to start with the phrase "retrieved from," you can simply list the URL after the title. Do not place a period at the end of the URL.
Use the name of the corporate entity for in-text citations. Whenever you paraphrase information from the manual in your paper, place a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence with the name of the corporate entity and the year the manual was published. If you use the name of the corporate entity in your text, you only need to provide the year.
For example, you might write: "Life Fitness recommends using a water bottle or other container with a lid if you keep your water on the bike itself while riding. Provide readers a way to locate direct quotations from the manual. When you include a direct quotation, your readers need to be able to find it in the original source. If the manual is paginated, this is simple — just provide the page number. Create an account. Popular Categories. Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies. Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues.
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Tips and Warnings. Related Articles. Article Summary. Part 1. This is key. It may seem self-evident, but knowledge is the key to writing a successful manual. Talk to experts. If your role is simply the writer rather than the subject matter expert, involve knowledgeable people throughout the process and make sure they review your work. Their knowledge and advice is invaluable. Try a hands-on approach. If possible, doing the thing you are writing about will, at the very least, give you a feel for what the user will want to learn.
Read up on the subject. Learn to talk the talk, and become conversant in the product you are writing about. Manuals of similar products will show you how other writers have tackled the subject. Look for similarities among the writers, which indicates both common functionality and common approaches to describing something.
Look for differences that stand out. Those are likely to be functions that are unique to a given product. Your product may or may not include those functions, or may have alternate ways of solving the problem that you can describe, enhancing the value of your product.
While your job may be writing a how-to, showing the customers the value of their purchase is a great way to encourage them to continue reading. Devour trade magazines. Find out how the people who use the products work with them day-to-day.
They may wish there was a function that solved their particular problem, and if your product is the solution, that needs to be highlighted. Part 2. Break it down. Whether a simple step-by-step instruction sheet, or a manual for a 35mm digital camera, breaking it down into digestible chunks has several benefits: It lets you focus on individual parts of the whole.
Your goal is to familiarize the user with how to learn the process. How to perform the function can be left for a tutorial at the end, if desired, or left for the user to discover on their own. Follow a logical sequence. This is especially useful if you do not know the subject matter well. Use this as your template for your table of contents. Review your steps. Gather your supplies.
How to write a manual
Last Updated: September 15, To create this article, 9 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 67, times. Writing a manual on an important function at work can demonstrate your abilities to your superiors.
It demonstrates your ability to complete a project on your own. Random Article. How to Write a Manual from Scratch. Explore this Article Steps. Tips and Warnings. Related Articles. Author Info Last Updated: September 15, Decide on your subject. Be specific in scope and range. Decide what audience you are writing for. Are you writing a manual for beginners or experts or somewhere in between? Is the audience going to be involved with a class using the manual or self-study?
Define exactly what you are going to talk about in the manual. Example: You are writing a manual "How to Install Doors". One section might be about sliding doors. Another section might be about front doors. Still another section might be about back doors. Decide upon a logical order to present your manual. This is not about a logical order of actions. Some subject may need to be presented first. Tasks that will be included in all parts of the manual should probably be discussed first.
If you feel that the reader should already have the skills to complete the task, then consider describing the task in an appendix. If the manual is going to use technical terminology or jargon, prepare a glossary. If it is unlikely the reader will already know the jargon, place the glossary immediately after the table of contents.
Update the glossary as you write the manual. If the term is an acronym, like "Scuba", then fully explain that it means "Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus" in the definition.
Decide what subjects you need to further research. An inaccurate manual is a useless manual. Complete your preliminary research before starting the manual. Decide on an organization for each section you are going to write. Example: You are writing a manual about such and so computer.
You have a section called "Troubleshooting". You might write part of it about disk space issues. You might write another about excessive memory usage. Organize each section and subsection in a logical order, narrowing the range of the topic. Start Writing! Use your organization as a guide, but alter it if it doesn't work. Write examples that the reader can follow to gain instruction. Prepare appropriate illustrations.
Do not add them until the manual is completed. The illustrations will need to be fitted to the text. Modify illustrations to give hints to indicate what the user is looking for. Example 1: Looking on a numbered list A writer would connect a problem with the number "13". Example 2: Sorting Out A writer would enlarge a line of text that was out of order. Don't plagiarize someone else's writing! Nothing destroys a writer's credibility faster than plagiarism.
One day, someone may be quoting your writing. How would you feel about someone "stealing" your work? Add appropriate illustrations. Fit them into the document. Do not be afraid to use white space. Proofread, Proofread and proofread again. Proofreading should be ongoing. Make notes of errors or omissions. Correct them. Make notes of passages others find confusing.
Rewrite the passage to make it easier to read. Have a variety of people read your manual to insure the best possible result. This is the order I recommend you have a completed manual proofread: Proof your work, yourself. Have a friend proofread it. Have an expert in the field you are writing about proofread it. If the manual is for your company , have your boss proofread it. Have a novice proofread it. Why have a novice proofread it? The manual must be understandable to the minimum knowledge level you expect to read it.
Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. Make sure the title page and the footers on each page name YOU as the author!
Print copies of the manual before submitting electronically. Have proofreaders make notes on the pages. Include a "c" surrounded by parenthesis in the footer. Most programs will interpret that marking as a copyright and place the correct symbol. The footer should read c by Your Name.
It will not stop your company from copying it, but it will guarantee your claim to authorship. You Might Also Like. How to. About this article. Co-authors: 9. Updated: September 15, Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 67, times.
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