When dealing with the operation of newly purchased products, many of us have had trouble navigating their features. Following several unsuccessful attempts, we often resort to consulting the user manual, a document that we may have initially disregarded.
67% of customers prefer using self-service means when encountering issues before contacting customer support. This is because of the availability of various self-service options, making it easier to resolve issues independently.
In this blog, you will learn about creating user manuals, the types, how to make your user guide effective, their benefits, and some of the writing tools you can use to create a top user manual.
What is a user manual?
A user manual or a user guide is a document that contains instructions and all the information on a particular product. It can also be referred to as an instruction manual.
Insights from the manual will properly guide users on the best ways to install, troubleshoot, and operate a product.
Outlining the instructions step-by-step makes self-help process easier for users whenever they have an issue.
A customer-centric user manual should include:
- Product identification: This includes the product name and serial number.
- Product description: This includes product specifications, functions, and information
These manuals come in different forms such as:
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Users can access the user guide either in printed or digital form, or both, according to the their preferences.
What are the types of user manuals?
User manuals play a crucial role in ensuring that products are used safely and correctly. To effectively guide users, these manuals are categorized into different types.
Let’s look at some of the types of user guides.
- Instruction manual: A document containing step by step instructions informing users on how to use the product. The manual should have highly detailed instructions with visuals that makes comprehension simple.
- Training manual: A type of manual with instructions on how to complete specific tasks or jobs. They can be used as resources to educate employees or customers, helping them to gain important skills.
- Service manual: Provides information on how to maintain equipment or machinery during its lifetime. It contains troubleshooting guides and technical machine specifications.
- Operations manual: Indicates all the necessary work-related responsibilities in a company.
- Organization policy manual: Highlights a company’s procedures, policies, and best practices. It is a guide within a company that ensures operations within the company run smoothly.
- Standard operating procedures (SOP) manual: A guide on how certain procedures or tasks are supposed to be done.
How to create a user manual
Having a user manual is essential because it ensures your employees follow the organization policies and guidelines during their operations.
Here are the steps you should employ to create a user guide:
Know and understand your audience
The first crucial step is knowing and understanding your audience, especially their common and basic information. This includes:
- Demographics
- Pain points
- Accessibility
- Levels of expertise
- Previous interactions
- Needs and preferences
This information will provide insight that will help you to write the instruction in a way that your audience can easily relate to and understand.
You can track customer engagement metrics and use the information from your support team to understand your audience better.
Identify the problem and create relevant content
User manuals are made to solve different issues, from easy fixes to bigger problems that might need expert help. It is upon you to find the issue and the areas likely to cause confusion to the users.
Finding the problem helps you make the user guides better by giving the right solutions, making self-support easier for users.
User manuals are self-help resources, meaning it is important to make your instructions clear and detailed for end-users to easily understand it.
Based on customer insights, draft a user guide that directly addresses customer’s concerns.
Assume your users don’t know much about the product or service; therefore, make the manual easy to understand.
You can achieve this by personalizing the content to clear areas likely to cause confusion. You can also consider including visual illustrations where necessary to make it relatable.
Break it down into logical steps
Once you’ve identified the problem and have the content ready, it is important to write your instructions in a sequential order. This will make it easier for your users to navigate the manual.
The content to be included in your user manual should be directly based on the organization’s guidelines and standards.
Consider the following tips when writing your user guide:
- Break down your instructions in simple, direct, and easy-to-follow steps.
- Use a proper table of contents, headings, and subheadings to make divisions and distinctions when required. This organizes your content to reduce confusion.
- Choose a template that has the proper structure and formatting that your audience can understand.
Furthermore, do not provide too many instructions in a single step. That makes the instruction overcrowded and difficult to understand.
Have a quality and skilled content team
Standards can only be set if the quality of your product is high. To make your user manual stand out, gather a team of experts who know a lot about writing manuals and understand the product well.
The team will ensure the content in the user guide is highly researched, factual, and easily relatable to your customers. This leads to a standardized manual dedicated to addressing your customers’ concerns.
Incorporate multimedia elements
Visuals are essential components in a user manual because they help users understand content better.
When describing a process or feature, adding a visual element enables users to know what to expect.
They can be in different forms such as:
- Photographs
- Illustrations
- Diagrams
- Screenshots
- Videos
Having visual aids in the manuals makes them more reliable and effective at providing guidance.
Edit your content for accuracy
Thoroughly review and edit your content before publishing. This involves:
- Ensuring your content is free from any grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors.
- Confirming your manual is well-organized and structured in sequential order.
- Improving readability using simple terms and plain language.
- Polishing the work to improve overall content quality.
This process can be effectively done using a team of proofreaders. Their mandate will be to correct mistakes in the content before sending it out to be published.
After reviewing and polishing the content, you can provide your customers with a well-crafted and highly accurate user guide.
Measure success for your user manual
How your customers interact and value the manual is crucial to determine the levels of progress made.
Success can be measured using various KPIs (Key performance indicators). They include the following:
- Gathering customer feedback using surveys
- Measuring upvotes and downvotes
- Customer satisfaction scores
- Page views
Information gained from the metrics will help make necessary adjustments to the user manual; thereby, addressing user demands effectively.
Measuring success also helps to minimize errors, making the product understandable to customers.
Ultimately, manuals improve interactions with your brand, leading to better customer relations and customer satisfaction.
Qualities that contribute to a good user manual
There are various qualities that can make your user guide outstanding despite the differences in content.
Qualities contributing to a great user manual include:
- Plain and simple language: Avoid technical and difficult-to-understand words in your manual. Always use language that is clear and shares information directly.
- Appealing design: Use an interactive and visually appealing design with different features that make your user guide stand out. This is important because it enhances customer experience leading to customer satisfaction.
- Logical structures: To properly organize your manual, use a table of contents, titles, and subtitles to differentiate certain concepts. This improves customer engagement by making navigation smooth and easy.
- Procedural instructions: Use a step-by-step model when writing instructions to avoid confusion. This is effective for complex procedures.
- Visuals: Using illustrations makes the content more relatable. Use relevant visuals such as videos, diagrams, and screenshots.
- Relevant topics: The content within the user manual should directly correspond to the topic being discussed. This ensures that the manuals stays relevant, thereby enhancing the customer experience and ultimately fostering customer retention.
- Accessibility: Make sure your user guide is easily accessible to customers at their convenience by integrating it into your knowledge base. Use simple formats that can be opened on any device.
- User-centric approach: Research by NICE indicates that 81% of customers expect more self-service options from organizations or companies.
Always create a user guide that focuses on end users. Identify their skills, knowledge, and concerns. This will assist you in effectively connecting with your users by offering content that is tailored to their needs.
It improves customer relations by ensuring the manual identifies directly with the audience.
What are the advantages of user manuals?
User manuals empower users to navigate through features of a product independently unlocking the full potential of a product or service.
The following are some of the benefits you can expect from a user guides.
- Easier onboarding: According to research by Rocketlane, 94% of companies believe that a powerful onboarding strategy is a key responsibility for an onboarding team. The guide should offer users guidance, support, and clarity on a product, saving on cost and time during onboarding.
- Enhanced customer engagement: By providing a user manual focused on the customer’s needs and preferences, the information becomes interactive and helpful.
- Encourages self-support: 85% of customers are satisfied when they resolve their concerns via customer self-service as a self-help resource, guides reduce the amount of time wasted searching for support teams. It improves productivity because users can solve their concerns at any time.
- Reduced support costs: With the interactive and engaging user guides, companies can save on costs that would otherwise be used to provide support.
- Leads to customer satisfaction: A customer-centric manual provides all the necessary details to improve customer experiences when using a product.
Top technical writing tools for creating user manuals
Using technical writing software makes documentation more efficient. The best tools for your business may depend on the content and preferences. Let’s discuss some of the top tools you can use.
BoldDesk
BoldDesk is a powerful tool for creating user manuals that uses AI features to create documentation. It simplifies the process of creating knowledge base platforms for your organization.
It comes with numerous customization and integration features at your disposal. It is one of the best tools that you can use to enhance customer service experience.
Adobe RoboHelp
An effective writing tool with an interactive user interface for creating self-service content, online help guides, procedures, and policies. It can be used to design compelling user manuals that can be used online and offline.
MadCap Flare
MadCap Flare is a writing tool that can be used to create dynamic and interactive documentation, including learning programs.
Knowmax
Knowmax is a writing tool that has incorporated AI in its system to enhance knowledge management. Using their artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, you can use it to manually create a user guide with visuals to guide users effectively.
Boost productivity by developing a detailed user manual
User manuals have become easier to create, meaning there is no excuse to lack one. This is a valuable part of your business that requires dedication and investment to make it outstanding and user-centric.
Always remember to first know your audience, then develop a user guide that engages and addresses any concerns your customers might have.
Try our 15-days free trial at BoldDesk or book a live demo to enhance your knowledge management by taking advantage of our advanced software features.
In case of any concerns, our support team is always available to help every step of the way. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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