As a user, nothing is more frustrating than reading instructions that are out of date. Help files that describe buttons, icons or features that simply don’t exist anymore are one of the cruelest things any organization can inflict upon its users.
Unfortunately it is all too common. How often do your update your docs? What if you GPS was only updated as often as your documentation?
People are increasingly turning to Twitter to get customer support. Reaching out to a company on Twitter is simple and fast. But all companies that offer customer support via Twitter struggle with one question:
How do you answer customer questions in 140 characters or less?
The answer is that sometimes you can’t. Some answers require more detail. The trick is to optimize your online content for Twitter support. All you need is a Twitter account and a willingness to rethink how you structure and deliver your online documentation.
Have you ever been to Home Depot or Lowe’s and asked someone where a tool or part was? Which response did you prefer?
Obviously we all prefer to be given the exact information we need, not just general directions of where to look. This is especially true of software documentation.
You need to optimize your software documentation so that you and your support team can deliver exactly the information your customers need, when and where they need it.
The best way to do that is to create documentation that is attached with velcro. In today’s Docs that Rock Whiteboard video I explain exactly what connecting your content with velcro means.
Have you ever answered a customer question by sending them to page 97 of your software manual? Or page 153? Or page 256?
Oh the horror. What if your GPS treated you the same way?
As our manuals and our customers’ manuals have grown on ScreenSteps Live we have all wanted to provide better ways for people to navigate all of our great help content. This week we have released two updates that we think will make your readers’ experience even better on ScreenSteps Live.
Now, by clicking on chapter titles in the right or left sidebar, readers can expand and collapse chapter contents while still viewing a lesson. This makes it much easier to find related lessons.
You can try it out for yourself in our example Salesforce manual.
Without clear goals your software documentation is bound to fail. Recently we have started thinking of our documentation in two contexts:
Several years ago I was working on a project around the house. I can’t remember exactly what I was trying to fix, but it was something that was a bit complicated. My 3 year old at the time was very interested in what I was doing and asked if he could help.
I replied, “I don’t think you can help with this. It’s kind of complicated.”
To which he replied, “That’s OK. I’m good at making things complicated.” Read the rest of this entry »
I’m going to say something controversial.
In my opinion there is no such thing as good documentation that doesn’t have pictures.
It shouldn’t be controversial, but it is. Written words simply can’t communicate information as quickly and clearly as a screenshot can so if you are leaving out pictures you are killing the effectiveness of your documentation.
In this installment of our Docs That Rock Whiteboard Video Series I explain why in more detail:
We hate software documentation that doesn’t have pictures. You would be amazed at how many professional technical writers consider pictures and screenshots an afterthought. This video will give you an idea of what we think of documentation that doesn’t use pictures.
Do you answer yes to any of these questions?
Managing knowledge bases without an easy way for groups of people to access them can suck productivity out of your business. If your customers and employees are constantly scrambling to find the information they need you need to consider the hidden power of an online manual.
Online manuals centralize all of your pertinent data for specific groups. Whether it is a customer support manual, an employee handbook, a research guide, a lesson plan, an employee hiring test or a product tutorial guide, online manuals can solve your problems of distributing information to a large or small audience.
Compare this to what a lot of organizations are doing – locking their knowledge in PDF and Word files. Capturing your organization’s knowledge in these formats makes that knowledge hard to access and hard to update.
But with online manuals you can provide the flexibility of instant access to the material your customers and employees need wherever they are and whenever they need it. If you have locked your knowledge in a PDF or Word file the user has to:
The process is so painful that every business we talk to reports that almost no one in their organization reads the manuals they create as Word or PDF files. All that work waisted simply because the information is trapped in a document somewhere and not online.
Publishing new content to your knowledge base is an additional hidden benefit of using online manuals. If you have a new product to add to your tutorial guide or you have expanded your base of operations to include a new branch office, you can easily incorporate the new information into your online documentation.
And updates? Not a problem. Did you forget a step in your step-by-step online guide? You can easily update your guide information to clarify and improve your instructions. No more searching for the latest revision of the document or sending out emails to your entire company just so that they have the “latest” version of the PDF or Word file.
You can also make your online manuals more engaging. Adding many images to Word and PDF files can dramatically increase their size making it more difficult to deliver to users. But with online manuals you can easily add images to clarify your documentation (especially if you are using a tool like ScreenSteps Live.
Online manuals are powerful tools for communicating crucial information with your customers and employees. So if your manual is gathering dust as it sits locked in a PDF or Word file it’s time to move online. The ease of access, ease of use and increased productivity for you and your customers make it well worth the effort.
Blue Mango Learning Systems
© 2011
