User Guides

How many times have you read a user guide? Now read the question again - it didn't ask how many times you have seen a user guide, or glanced at one, but how many times you have actually read one, properly.

The answer is likely to be very few, because, like most people, you'll be more anxious to start using the shiny new expensive gadget you have just bought, or begin clicking the buttons in that fantastic new software bundle you purchased. Sitting and reading a user guide or manual can feel a little like going back to school to learn all the theory.

This isn't helped by the fact that so many user guides or manuals are written by the technical boffins who understand everything from particle physics to the nanotechnology, and write the guides with the assumption in mind that you have at least the same level of understanding. Either this, or they're written by someone whose first language isn't English, and neither is their second or third, but they're a dab hand at using Google's translation tool.

This is usually one of the rare times I do actually read a user guide - when they've been translated by a computer, or by someone with only a hazy awareness of what English is supposed to look like. I read a document recently for a mobile phone charger which advised me to be cautious if it reached temperatures in excess of 4647°C. That's unlikely, as I would imagine that most of my street would be burnt to a cinder long before it reached the temperatures close to the surface of the sun.

The problem with most user guides is that they simply aren't. I mean, they're not written for the user, and they don't exactly guide the reader either. They seem written for knowledgeable experts and techno-boffins, not so much as a guide as a technical manual. Taking an advanced technical manual and printing the words 'User Guide' in large friendly letters on the front does not a user guide make...

The best user guides are written by those who not only have an excellent grasp of the English language - an English writer being the perfect choice - but also by someone with almost no familiarity or foundation knowledge of the product at all. In this way they can ask all of the right questions, and help provide a natural route into using the product that combines the inevitable curiosity with which any consumer is likely to approach the product, with the basic and essential knowledge required to actually get started safely.

If your business or organization provides user guides, think about how these are planned out and developed, and who is responsible for writing them, checking them and trying them out. If technical people responsible for the design or manufacture of the items are the ones responsible, this may well prove to be a complete waste of time.

Nobody wants to spend time writing a book that no one will ever read. Why waste hours writing a user guide that no one is going to read, still less, actually understand? The usefulness and readability of your user manuals is often the one chance to get your written word into the hands of your customers. You have a chance to speak directly with your customer, within their own home. What you say, and how you say it, will make a great impression, and could either win you the loyalty of a customer for the future, or lose that loyalty forever.

For more information on writing services available for user guides or product manuals, or to discuss any other projects you may have, please use the contact link at the top of the page.