How to Create Comprehensive User Manuals for Software Products

When your customers start using your software products, they may have many questions, such as: “How to get started?” or “How does feature X work?” A user software manual can help them calm their nerves and get answers instantly.

 

User guides lead the software’s end user in understanding all its features, functions, and capabilities to apply those effectively for the desired outputs. User-friendly software manuals are the answer, primarily if the documents are written so that non-technical users like myself can understand. Good software documentation involves complex systems and integrating various functions and data from different sources.

Using an LMS for software companies can facilitate the process of managing and simplifying the learning process so information is up-to-date, easily accessible, and understandable by all.

 

What are Software Manuals?

Software manuals are information a software company wants to provide its customers, clients, stakeholders, and partners. They house comprehensive instructions broken down so that the customer can easily understand and operate the software.

 

Types of Software Manuals 

There are many types of software manuals that organizations provide to the end users:

1. Administrative documentation: This provides top-level guidelines, roadmaps, and product requirements for the development team and project managers working on the product.
2. Developer documentation: These are instructions for building the software developers use throughout development.
3. User Documentation & How-to Guides: The how-to guides show the end user how to accomplish something.
4. Training Manuals: Training manuals provide how-to information on accomplishing a task, project, or job.
5. Service Manuals: Service manuals provide information about the care and maintenance of a product.
6. Operator Manuals: Operation manuals explain the software manufacturer’s roles, responsibilities, and processes.
7. Standard Operating Procedures: Standard Operating Procedures or SOPs include step-by-step details for accomplishing a procedure.

 

Importance of Good Software Documentation 

It follows that about 90% of millennials and 70% of the company’s customers need to get questions answered about the software they use to avoid calling or emailing the customer service department. They will use the organization’s website before calling or emailing. As we can see, software documentation is preferred because customers can instantly get what they want without searching for a hardcopy guide in the house or at work.

 

Good user documentation reduces the time and effort of a support team because it empowers users to troubleshoot. The more seamless and quicker the users find answers to their queries, the less direct support is needed. This not only hastens the resolution time for the user but also frees the support teams to deal with higher-value issues. It will, therefore, enhance an organization’s internal efficiency in terms of better resource utilization.

 

Software documents are living manuals because of technological improvements like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Software updates, new hardware, etc. The writers continuously update the documentation regarding those changes so that users can always get the latest information. These continuous revisions and enhancements help keep the knowledge base relevant and useful.

 

Most importantly, it improves customer satisfaction and enhances the user experience. Good documentation provides users with a self-service support channel they can count on any time, adding value to their knowledge of the software. If well-structured, clear, and easy-to-navigate documents are provided, users’ interaction with a company’s products will be highly improved. This nurtures a good relationship between users and the software and adds to the brand reputation.

 

What are the Benefits of Software Documentation? 

There are a few benefits to software documentation over printed user manuals, such as:

1. Online help documentation is accessible anywhere, anytime, on any device: Clients can access this help with a laptop, iPad, or mobile phone at their favourite coffee shop and needn’t bother with what they did with the instructions that came along with the product.
2. A perfect marketing tool: It may utilize keywords as one of its SEO options to boost the product or service.
3. The presence of features like videos, code, screenshots, diagrams, charts, etc., is an eye-catcher for the end user. Who likes reading mundane texts?
4. It’s easy for a user to navigate a document. He can use search boxes, the table of contents, breadcrumbs, etc., to move around.
5. It enhances customers’ experiences. If a document is reader-friendly, the end users will get the maximum utility of that particular document. In such ways, long-term relationships between the organization and its customers can be made.
6. Storage: No valuable time needs to be spent looking for hard copies. The software’s documentation can easily be found in the cloud.

 

Software Documentation Best Practices 

Creating a great software help document is a time-consuming and planning-consuming process in itself; yet, if done with great patience and with the right software to create manuals, the rewards are endless.

1. Know the Objectives and the Audience

Understanding the purpose and identification of the target audience is essential. In addition, it gives an idea of what to write to achieve what one wants with the document by addressing the needs and expectations of its target audience. It ensures that the document is relevant and valuable to the intended users.

2. Jot Down Vital Questions

By predicting what a reader wants, the author can capture critical concepts and craft a document with considerable value. Being this proactive with writing means all software-related issues have been contemplated and thus documented, making it as complete as possible.

3. Create an Outline

An outline provides a blueprint for the document that helps the writer to organize their thoughts and construct well-structured content. If the document is outlined, the writer can be assured that they have covered all the objectives and provided information in a logical and user-friendly manner.

4. Gather the Information

Information gathering is an important aspect. You are familiar with the document or need to research the topic. This might include discussions with stakeholders, reading existing records, and knowing the software’s functionality. Accurate information gathering is the key to developing a helpful document.

5. First Draft Creation

Now that you have everything you need to know to develop your document, the time has come to make an initial draft. You start to give form to your document, remembering not to:

• complicate unnecessarily
• use technical expressions when not needed or important
• use big words that are hard for laypeople to understand
• forget the purpose and audience for which it’s being written

6. Add Documentation Visuals

Visuals help the user comprehend and interact with the document. Adding videos, images, and graphics may better explain specific points and make the document more presentable and more accessible for the end users to comprehend.

7. Conclude with Reviews and Checks

The last step involves thorough spelling and grammar checks to ensure professionalism and readability. Additionally, a review of the document by another person-preferably a subject matter expert-can provide excellent feedback and insights that could ensure the documentation is complete and accurate for its intended audience.

 

What tools can be used to Create a Software Document?  

A technical writer can use several software tools to develop the help documents. The tools assist in writing, editing, drawing, reviewing, and rewriting. A sample list of the tools available includes:

1. MadCap Flare: Madcap Flare is used for smoothing online help documentation and learning & development programs.
2. Google Docs: Google Docs is fast becoming a way to collaborate on documents using a mobile phone. MadCap Flare can integrate and extend Google Docs to the next level by providing more advanced content management and publishing options. It is mighty for teams that start their documentation in Google Docs but need more sophisticated output formats.
3. Snagit: Screen capture and recording software help give feedback, train, or demonstrate to others how something is done. MadCap Software provides the integrated solution of MadCap Capture, which works seamlessly with Flare and provides a comprehensive way to create, manage, and insert screen captures and videos right into your documentation, making your help content look more visually appealing and informative.
4. Microsoft Visio: In Visio, design flowcharts, architectural diagrams, software product designs, circuits, etcetera are designed. MadCap Flare allows inserting diagrams and images created in Visio, enabling technical writers to integrate complicated visual data into the documents quickly and enhance technical papers’ comprehensiveness and clarity.
5. Adobe Photoshop is an extremely powerful tool for image editing. It creates and edits images for Web pages, banner ads, and video graphics. MadCap Flare can’t replace image editing software, but one can easily import pictures edited in Photoshop into the application. Therefore, it was relatively easy for writers to enhance their documentation with quality visuals within Flare.
6. Adobe FrameMaker: Authors create structured documents using the Adobe FrameMaker and the 100% DITA-compliant XML framework. However, the new CCMS, IXIA from MadCap, has much to offer that may place it ahead in modern documentation needs. IXIA CCMS provides a cloud-based service that enhances collaboration among team members irrespective of their location. This is beneficial at this time when people work remotely. Unlike Adobe FrameMaker, which focuses on desktop publishing, IXIA CCMS enables teams to work together in parallel on projects, track changes, manage versions, and review in real-time. That level of collaboration means projects move ahead more smoothly and accurately.
7. WordPress: Many authors create technical documentation in a blog format or custom post types using WordPress. MadCap Flare allows exporting content to HTML5, which can easily be integrated into WordPress sites. This offers a more controlled and sophisticated approach to creating and managing technical documentation that can be published as part of a company’s web presence.

 

Creating and Storing Software Help Documentation

Once the Software Help Documents are created, they must be stored in a document portal. A document portal provides a secure, centralized place to access all documentation. The advantages of having a document portal:

• Reduces the amount of storage space.
• Simplifies backup and recovery.
• Prevents human error data loss.
• Provides security.
• Centralized location.

 

As indicated in the Creating a Software Help Documentation section, the way to entice readers is to make the documentation appealing. Here are some of the ways that writers can make that documentation “pop:

1. Embedded Videos: Adding videos is one of the easiest ways to connect to the end user. It is one of the easiest ways to explain how a product works or how to use a unique feature.
2. Images and Graphics: Images and graphics can provide a way to explain something without using words.
3. Fonts and Themes: Ensure that the software document’s fonts, themes, and colours blend with the website so that your customers don’t feel they are on two different websites because others have designed them.
4. White space: Ensure there is breathing space throughout the documents. White space improves readability and understanding; a messy document will turn readers away.
5. Please keep it simple. The document should be detailed, but it must be straight to the point.
6. Responsive: The document should be accessible on mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. It is a software document that anyone can easily access at any time.

 

The first impression is the lasting one, and Software help documentation can get you there. It all comes down to good planning and thinking about the customer. Thus, with the reduced need for hard copy documentation, the usage of Software help documentation would become imperative.