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Writing User Guides

(Contact Hours: 30) $245.00

Course Description

Designed for people who want to enter the technical writing field, this course focuses on writing effective user (how-to) guides and gives an introduction to the job of a user guide writer. Whether writing for the users of a company’s computer system, for cashiers who need to know how to use a scanner, or for owners of a new appliance, user guide writers are needed. And, writing for the end user is one way to enter the technical writing field. Many writers start their jobs at companies maintaining and creating end user materials.

Coursework focuses on how to write reader-friendly documentation, what to look for in maintaining existing guides, the steps involved in creating new guides, working with style considerations, the differences between editing and proofreading, and the job of the user guide writer.

Students will get the opportunity to write several end user pieces. The first four weeks of the class introduce students to the how-to of writing user guides and give an over of this aspect of the technical writing field. The last four weeks of the class will act as a workshop. While additional topics will be discussed, the focus is on writing a major assignment. With instructor guidance, students will hone their projects. The goal of the assignment is to create a sample piece for the student’s portfolio.

Outcomes

Students are assessed by:

• By making updates to the pages of a fictitious user guide based on a mock source document.
• By writing a short how-to section on using a grocery store scanner.
• By completing a proofreading exercise and a writing exercise.
• By creating a mini-user guide detailing an e-mail system.
• By creating a style-sheet.

Assessment

After taking this course, students will:

• Understand what is involved in doing the job of a technical (user guide) writer.
• Be able to create reader-friendly documentation.
• Have a sample “how to” piece to add to their portfolio.
• Have a basic understanding of the field of technical writing.
• Know the difference between proofreading and editing and be able to apply these skills to their work.

Week 1

Introduction

In the first week, we will take a brief look at the field of technical writing and some trends in writing user guides. Students will become familiar with how the job of a user guide writer is structured. Also, we’ll look at a few pages from a paper-based guide and then talk about electronic publishing.

Students will be asked to write directions for a common task as a “warm-up” exercise. Also, they will be asked to tell a little bit about themselves and why they took this course.

Week 2

The Mechanics of Creating and Maintaining User Guides

In this week, we’ll take a top to bottom look at the mechanics of creating and maintaining a guide. We’ll start by looking at the lifecycle of a guide (birth, maintenance, resurrection, death). We’ll follow that by talking about what it takes to go from blank page to distribution, the procedures involved in getting a writing assignment in the lifecycle out the door to the user.

We’ll end by looking at elements involved in researching and writing text. We’ll talk about working with source documents. Students will be introduced to the “3 C’s” of good technical writing: Clear, Concise, and Complete.

For many writers, their first job assignment is to do an update (maintenance) to an existing manual. In this week’s homework, students get a chance to do a maintenance assignment. Students will be given a mock specification memo (source document) pertaining to updates to be made to a fictitious user guide. They will also receive pages of the fictitious guide. It will be the students' job to determine from the memo what needs to be changed within the guide pages and make those updates.

In addition, students will be asked to observe cashiers using a scanner in a grocery store (use the self-service lane, if available in their area) as part of their research for the week three assignment.

Week 3

Steps in the Writing Process

When creating a brand new user guide, a writer doesn’t just sit down and start describing how to use a product. There’s a lot of upfront work to do first. This week we focus on writing from scratch. We’ll start our scenario at the very beginning: being assigned the writing project. From there we’ll take a look at the steps needed to come up with the finished text. We’ll discuss: gathering information (on the audience, medium to be used, etc.), planning the document (style/format, etc.) outlining, drafting, testing, revising, and editing.

Students will complete a small case study, The Fairfield Scanner, for which they will write a two-three-page user guide section.

Week 4

Opportunities and Resources for User Guide Writers

Before going on to the workshop component of this course, we’ll use this week to review any questions on the previous weeks’ material, look at the types of job opportunities available to user guide writers, and talk about some resources available to them.

User guide writers may work as either employees or consultants. It used to be that writers who worked as employees of a firm felt that consultants had the better deal, “the greener pasture”. However, the differences that used to exist between employees and consultants are disappearing with time and the market place. There are pros and cons to each position and we’ll discuss what those are.

There are a variety of resources available to the technical writer. I’ll share some websites of interest and talk a bit about the Society for Technical Communication.

Students will be asked to send in questions regarding the material presented in the first three weeks of the course and the technical writing field. From that, class Q and A feedback will be created and shared with all students.

Week 5

The Case Study Begins (Considering Layout and Design)

During the last four weeks of the class, students will put together a short user guide sample describing how to do certain e-mail functions. The students will use their own e-mail systems as the basis for this project.

This week, we'll talk briefly about some things to consider when creating the layout of a guide. This will include talking about using screen prints (for those guides that need to use them).

Students will write a user guide section describing how to sign on to an e-mail system and access mail.

Week 6

Editing, Proofreading, Style- sheets, and Proprietary Information

Many times a writer must be an editor and a proofreader, too. We’ll look at editing and proofreading and how they differ. We’ll cover creating style-sheets as a map for consistency. In addition, we cover the subject of proprietary information. Unlike other types of writing (like magazine or newspaper articles), the technical writer does not own the rights to the user guide he/she creates. We’ll talk about what that means to the writer.

For this week, students will be asked to create a style-sheet for the guide section written during week five. Also, there will be a proofreading exercise to complete.

Week 7

Consistency

Students will write two more guide sections: how to read and save incoming mail and how to send a note. Utilizing their style-sheets, student should strive to make sure that the new sections have the same tone and look of the sections assigned in week 5. In addition, students will revise and resubmit the previously written sections (signing on and accessing mail) based on the instructor feedback they have received.

Week 8

Polishing the Piece

Having received instructor feedback on the previous assignment, students will make any revisions needed. In addition, they will create a table of contents, a systems message log in which they will describe error messages and their resolutions, and a glossary.

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SAMPLE LESSON WEEK 1
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Technical Writing – An Overview Of The Field

In this piece, I’m going to share with you some of the things I’ve learned about working as a technical writer who specializes in creating user guides. Although it will start out with a general overview of the technical writing field, this piece will focus on the work of user guide writers. If you have some PC background (even just self-taught), this could be one way you can expand your writing business.

Overview

First, let me define the technical writing field as I have seen it over time. Technical writers are those that can take a complex subject (such as how to use a new computerized ledger system) and document its functions in easy-to-read language. Technical writers can handle a variety of assignments. Some of the most popular and lucrative are those involved with the computer field. Here are a few examples…

Writers of user guides review a computer system (in many cases actually learning it or testing it) and then write about how it works for the people who will be using it. This kind of writing is similar to what you read in software manuals. It is “how to” kind of writing.

Some computer-related technical writing is a little more programming oriented. This is where you document how to install a computer system or new software. The writer supplies instructions and some programming language. In some cases, a writer might create “release notes”. This is documentation that goes out with the release of new or enhanced software/systems and explains the features/changes involved.

Besides software-related technical writing, writers are needed in other areas as well. The chemical and medical fields need writers to document certain procedures and methods used by their professionals. Consumer product companies need people who can write directions on how to use or assemble goods. (Have you ever read the directions for assembling a child’s toy and wondered who wrote them…you got it.. a technical writer!)

As you may have guessed, some forms of technical writing are far more specialized than others. For some you need a degree in a specialized field such as medicine, engineering or chemistry. Even for some software-related writing, a degree in computer science is needed. However, there are many opportunities for the writer who has become PC literate (perhaps self-taught) but not to the degree of being a programmer. If you fit that bill…writing user guides could be right up your alley.

(Though much of the following focuses on writing user guides, it is also true of writing user guides for products/company procedures, etc.)

What Is Writing User Guides All About?

Writing user guides (also known as “End user documentation”) is like teaching. You are teaching the reader how to us the program/procedure/product, etc. The audience is not a group of gurus but many times is entry level employees who need some help in learning how to do a procedure or use a computer program. They need someone to show the steps involved in doing what needs to get done.

User Guide writing involves many of the skills/attributes of journalism. First, it takes curiosity. Just like a journalist needs a nose for news, the technical writer needs to be curious enough to want to get in there and find out how something functions. Many technical writers learn the subject, even test out programs/procedures, before documenting it. Also technical writers have to be to the point. A person who is lost in a function (like a word processor) does not want to wade through glorious prose while trying to figure out why they can’t print a document. Finally, technical writing takes some interviewing skills. There are times when learning the program/procedure won’t be enough, you need to ask questions of the person who created it. You need to get out of them the information that will help you explain functions to your readers. (In technical writing jargon, the person who is considered an expert on a software or procedure is referred to as a Subject Matter Expert or SME for short. You’ll hear some people pronounce it as “smee”. Some companies just refer to them as SE….subject expert)

As for your readers, you need to understand them too. You’ll find that sometimes you want to go out and meet some of the audience for your manual to see how you can make it the best resource for them to use. (For example, would a paper-based manual be easier for your readers than one they can access online? You need to talk to them about it.)

To be a writer of end user materials, you should have at a minimum experience using a major word processor - Word For Windows has become an industry standard. Also, knowledge of desktop publishing software or web software will make you more marketable. For example, knowing Framemaker or FrontPage are pluses. Another plus is knowing a graphics software such as Visio.

What's The Technical Writer's Niche In A Company?

I’ve seen firms where an entire department was dedicated to technical writing. Project leaders would come to this department when they needed a manual written. A writer would be assigned to the manual and do the work of putting it together. Once the manual was written, it was reviewed by an editor that checked for proofreading and style errors. (Manuals should have a consistent layout throughout. We’ll be talking about layout in lesson 3.) After the editor has noted any problems and the writer has corrected them, the manual is reviewed by a Quality Assurance area that checks for accuracy. (They have a person try to use different portions of the manual to learn how to do a function.) If problems are detected in the text , the writer works on them. Once done, the writer works alone or with a production person to get the manual “published” and distributed. After that, the writer assigned to the manual is responsible for updating it when changes are made to the program/procedure it describes.

There is another kind of structure where a writer is hired for a particular project. Usually the writer is brought in when the project/program is being created. Instead of being in a department with a group of other writers, the writer is part of the project group of programmers, designers, etc. In this case, the writer becomes a kind of “one-person show”. He/she is responsible for writing/editing, proofreading, testing,producing, and distributing the manual. After the initial creation the writer may be kept on as the document evolves, doing maintenance and maybe taking on some other writing jobs like newsletters, etc. Sometimes, once the manual is created that’s when the job ends…its length is that of the creation period.

How Are The Jobs Structured?

Technical writers can be full time employees of the company who needs the user guide or writers can work on a particular project on a consulting basis. Consultants are not employees of the company who needs the manual but rather work for a firm that hires out writers to companies who need them for a certain period of time. Writers can also be independent contractors and hire themselves out as consultants. (We’ll go into the pros and cons of consulting a little bit more in the 4th lesson.)

The types of companies that need technical writing are many and vary. Everything from insurance companies to wall street related firms to payroll processing corporations need people to document the systems and procedures they do. One advantage of this variety is that if you do work only on a project basis and move on periodically, you get a taste for a number of different industries.

Although technical writers depend on sources for information and audience input, the work is somewhat independent in nature. Once you have the information you need, basically you’re on your own to put it together. As a result many companies now offer technical writers the opportunity to telecommute one or more days a week. Telecommuting means a person works from home. Generally, the worker would have a PC, modem, e-mail and telephone at home.

There you have it an overview of technical writing and the job of a user guide writer. In your next reading for this lesson, we’ll take a look at one of the trends of this field…using electronic media to present information.

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