Companies that make items often need technical manuals to give their consumers readily available information on the manufactured product's installation, operation, maintenance, and usage. These guides may cover a wide range of topics, including children's toys, electrical presents, industrial instruments, kitchen equipment, and timepieces.
If user manuals are poorly written or not given at all, the number of phone calls and emails asking how to use a device is likely to be high. Complaints are likely to be considered in some instances as well! As a result, it is beneficial to give well-written technical documentation for each item.
Putting together a technical handbook may seem simple, but you must consider how you would react to a product if you were viewing it for the first time, i.e., as a consumer would. When you spend your days working with or producing the product, this might be a difficult job. A technical document must also be accessible to all of your clients, which means you must consider how to translate the manual and distribute it.
So, before you start writing your first technical handbook, here are some things to think about:
1. Understand your target audience
Consider who will be reading this guidebook. Are there any assumptions you may make regarding the reader's level of knowledge? Are there any abbreviations in the handbook that you should make sure are adequately defined? Will diagrams be functional?
2. Consider the amount
Before deciding on distribution, you must first determine how many copies of the handbook you will need. Will the guide be supplied with a well-known product, for example? If this is the case, you will most certainly need more manuals to be produced and distributed than if you were merely generating a handbook for internal use.Â
If you are creating a limited number of manuals, you may be able to utilize a simple word processing application to generate and print the instructions yourself. More extensive manuals are likely to be more cost-efficient if produced professionally by an industrial printing business, where they can undoubtedly be bound and prepared for distribution—of course, creating an online guidebook that you can link all consumers to may be a more cost-effective option.
3. What language is it?
Is it conceivable that you will need to translate the handbook into another language(s)? If so, keep in mind that words and sentences may be lengthier in different nations, necessitating extra page space - German and Scandinavian languages, for example, may need up to 30% more line space than English. It is best to get a sample translation from any translation company you want to hire first. If you have any style or voice preferences, ensure that you have informed them of these preferences before entering into a contract with them.
4. Who is going to write the manual?
While you may believe that the product's designer is the ideal person to write the manual, this may not be the case since they are prone to overlooking material that is clear to them but requires explanation to the reader. So, attempt to choose an author for the manual who has a technical background but will ask all of the questions that a reader would have when confronted with the product for the first time.
Do you need assistance in developing technical manuals? Then, use expert business writing, editing, and proofreading services.