For many companies, users don’t always do what the company expects them to do, such as read the manual carefully. Despite the best efforts of some companies to produce clear, detailed manuals, the explicit instructions and careful warnings they put in their manuals are often ignored. Why is that? How do you make your users enjoy reading your manual? Here follow the steps of xiaobian to answer these questions one by one!
The difference between user manual and product manual
There are a lot of companies are easy to preconceptions, the provide users with a user manual, without careful study will internal product development manual copying down as the user manual provided to the user, and found that the many are push users get manual parameter, index had no instructions, they want like company thought he was going to provide a copy of man-han banquet, While white users see only one has not seen the ingredients, do not taste the “delicious”
Product manuals actually more like a professional strong product design and function of the library, and the user manual is more is to use plain language or simple intuitive pictures, video, shaping the teacher by holding two documents according to different target groups, product manual is mainly suitable for some related index and parameters of product specification, The user manual focuses more on the user and helps the user to solve the problems in the process of use
What is a good user manual?
Speaking of user manual, I have to mention that I have to fan my Lego through the user manual!
As a toy for children, intuitive user manual or not directly decides the children experience that when playing with the toys for the children of the user manual design is actually a variety of products in the most difficult one, because he not only to the pursuit of simple and intuitive at the same time also can’t design too detailed, in turn, let the children lose the fun of exploring, When I first saw the instruction manual of Lego, I was impressed by it. The simple and intuitive picture demonstration and step-by-step instructions on the assembly sequence of small people not only made it intuitive but also let children know that the hair, head and body of the toy can be matched freely by themselves.
Compared with my previous experience of buying a Bluetooth headset, I read the quick guide in the package carefully because it was my first time to buy a Bluetooth headset. As a result, I almost died in many operations
Take the rap for the operation of the headphones, oneself once use headphones when answering the phone, according to the instruction manual, I’d like to try on one side put music headphones, headset function of answering the phone, the side knock twice after answer the call is successful, the other side of the tap twice suspended instead of playing the music instead of the phone went dead, directly to the Later, WHEN I read the manual again, I found that there was only this simple operation interface, and there was no application operation in specific scenarios, which also brought me a very bad experience
How to design a great online user manual?
Said in front of the several cases are in the product packaging paper user manual, but now with the rapid development of Internet, online user manual has become a trend, many Internet companies are also in a letter on his official website and help center page, to help users to fit products and solutions often mention of doubt, So the following is a combination of the above experience to say how to build their own online user manual!
1. Be clear about who you’re talking to
- What is the goal of the user manual?
- What do users need to know to get the most out of my product or service?
- What are the most common problems faced by users, and what is the best way to solve them?
- What’s the best way to organize content for easy comprehension?
- Where is the best place to display the help documentation?
Mock user test user manual
Before creating the user manual, try to test the product in every possible situation. When testing, imagine being an end user. Write down all the complicated steps.
Collect comments from the customer service team
The customer service team is closest to the user, and adopting the advice of the customer service team will be more valuable to help create the document.
Check your competitor’s user manual
Learn from your competitors’ manuals and add their strengths to yours.
2. Combination of text and text
Visual content is easier to understand, faster to absorb, and plays a huge role in helping users understand how to perform certain tasks. It’s also more fun to develop. The best user help documents make full use of visual content, such as images, graphics, and video, to quickly show users how to solve their problems.
3. Present important issues
In the production of the user manual needs to collect the user’s real concerns in advance, you can do a questionnaire survey to write down the usual customer service received more questions, extract some important processes and main operations of the problem module. Put the high frequency issues that users really care about in a prominent position, and then, based on that, figure out how to explain them in the most comprehensive way in the least amount of text.
4. Unified template and fresh display interface
One of Nelson’s interaction principles is the consistency principle. This also applies to help documents. Since different products are responsible for different modules, if you don’t agree on a template at the beginning, you can easily end up in a mess. It is best to use a uniform template for help documentation, which is a better experience.
5. Structured directories
The contents of user help documents are classified and displayed, which makes it convenient for users to consult and orderly storage of product knowledge.
6. Accurate search support
An accurate search function is very important for online user manual, so it is recommended to use global search.
7. Feedback collection
With the continuous upgrade of the product and the increase of the user group, the user help document needs to be updated constantly, so we need to add a window for problem feedback and recovery in the help document page.
Finally, I recommend baklib, an online manual design tool that can create an online manual in 10 minutes
Product experience address: www.baklib.com/