Sample user manual for software project

The main tool that I developed in order to help Philip draw up his user manual is a User Manual Template. The template contains all the information and more from the list above.

It complies with the requirements for his product. The User Manual Template can be used for creating your manual for your system, tool, device, instrument, or for creating an installation manual, software manual, operational manual, maintenance manual or training manual. Based on the first template for Philip, we have developed templates for the following product groups:.

The user manual template is an MS Word document that can be printed or placed online. User manuals can be created using a variety of tools. Each tool has its own advantages and disadvantages. I will mention the most common tools below:. While drafting a user manual with help of the User Manual Template, it can be handy to have some good examples.

Through the following links you can download a user manual sample for documentation:. Ok, so now Philip has some basic knowledge about user manuals. When you want to write a manual that helps your user to solve problems, you first need to define who your user is. This can be done by creating a user profile, also named a persona. With a persona, you make some reasonable assumptions about the characteristics of your user.

This is not only useful for creating your user instructions, but it is an essential element at the start of the development of any product! As an educated industrial design engineer, this is how we started all our design assignments. You can use the template yourself to determine who your user is. Action: Use the template to describe your user s. I am a HUGE fan of visualizing things. So if you want to take defining your user one step further, I would suggest you visualise your user in the form of a persona.

When creating a persona you are giving your user a name, age et cetera, so it becomes a real person that represents your user. Typical problems might include: installing the product, using the product, using the product safely, maintaining the product and disposing of the product. I asked Philip to identify the problems and solutions that his user might encounter during the product lifecycle.

In order to do so, I created another template for Philip. Our user manual templates are compliant with this standard. Action: Use this template and the instructions on the first tab to identify the problems your user might have during the lifecycle of your product and present their solutions. Philip has now identified the problems a user might have with his product during its lifecycle and he has now thought of the solution to solve the problem. In other words: Philip has defined the topics for his user manual.

Each topic can only be about one specific subject, has an identifiable purpose, and must be able to stand alone. A user wants to solve one problem at a time.

A topic will become a section in the user manual. It can be a chapter or a sub- paragraph. As soon as a user is looking for an answer to his problem, he will use the table of contents to find out how to navigate to that answer. I asked Philip to structure the topics and define their place in the user manual, by assigning a certain topic to a specific chapter or sub- paragraph.

You have now created the Table of Contents ToC. The ToC is the outline of your user manual. Each topic in the user manual gets its own heading. The headings are the sub- titles that precede the actual text. They appear in the ToC, so the user can navigate to the needed information. Because the ToC entries play such an important role in helping your user find their way, and to help them skip what is NOT important, they need a bit more attention.

Basically, you should try and work with three levels of headings: first-, second- and third-level headings. The first-level heading describes what the entire chapter or section is about e. A third-level heading uses noun-phrases e. Packaging contents and Tools to be used. Meaningful Headings tab. Dependent on the market where your product is placed in or put into service, and dependent on the product group your product belongs to, specific legislation applies to your product.

These requirements also include requirements on the content of your user manual and safety instructions. In order to sell your product in a specific market, you should make sure that your user manual complies with these requirements. These two articles below will tell you how you can find out exactly which legislation applies to your product for the European and U.

Pro tip: when there is a Declaration of Conformity available already, you can find the applicable directives in there. Philip didn't need to conduct these steps, as the template he used already contained the legal content as required by the relevant directives. For his product, it means that the following information is required for the user manual for his product:.

This standard has been harmonised in the EU. Compliance with harmonised standards provides a presumption of conformity with the corresponding legislation! I have also created an IEC checklist that can be used to double check that your user manual complies with this standard.

In order to create an internationally compliant user manual, you should always make sure your manual meets the EU, US and requirements. I asked him to adjust the table of contents of the template according to his own table of contents. Without removing and mandatory elements of course Do you remember from step 4 that I asked to start the numbering of the sections with chapter 4? Once you download the user manual template doc yourself, you will see that a few standard chapters have been added, as well as some appendices.

The purpose of your product, or better: the intended use, is the heart of a user manual and forms the basis of ensuring the safe and healthy use of the product. The way the intended use is described also determines your liability and affects the further contents of the user manual. The most legislation requires you to include a description of the intended use in the user instructions.

The international standard for user instructions, the IEC , provides the following definition for the intended use:. An exhaustive range of functions or foreseen applications defined and designed by the supplier of the product. By describing the intended use you determine the safe envelope of the product. And once you have determined the intended use, you can focus on providing only those safety and user instructions for how to use the product within the given envelope. Additionally, to the intended use, many more standards, directives and regulations also require you to include a description of the reasonably foreseeable misuse.

For example, the reasonably foreseeable misuse of an aggressive detergent could be the use of it in a food processing environment. Paying too little attention to describing the reasonably foreseeable misuse will affect a company's liability.

If the defectiveness of a product needs to be determined, all circumstances will be taken into account. That includes the reasonably foreseeable use of the product. The description of the intended use determines which instructions are given in the rest of the manual. For example, if a cooling system is only used for cooling certain medications, then only these procedures need to be described.

When it could reasonably be foreseen that the cooling system may be used as a system to cool organs, this should be described in the instructions. By doing so, you, as the manufacturer, will limit your liability and you can focus on only describing how to use the system to cool medicines. Figure 1. Reasonably foreseeable misuse? Even though the intended use has now been clearly defined, this does not mean that using a product is completely without any risks.

To identify the hazards that come with the use of a product, you can conduct a risk analysis. A risk analysis can also be mandatory for certain product groups, such as low-voltage equipment, toys, machinery and equipment for use in explosive atmospheres.

Standards, like the ISO , have been developed on how to conduct a risk analysis. According to this method, there is the following hierarchy of risk-reducing measures:. This means that the user guide should warn of any residual risks related to the use of the product. This is done with safety warnings. A good safety warning describes the nature of a hazardous situation, the consequences of not avoiding a hazardous situation and the method s for avoiding it. Rotating parts. Risk of serious injuries.

Share Email. Top clipped slide. Download Now Download Download to read offline. Sample User Manual Jul. Technology Education. Functional Specs Short.

Sample Admin Guide. Sample Technical Guide. Sample Test Document. Sample User Acceptance Test. What to Upload to SlideShare. Related Books Free with a 30 day trial from Scribd. Related Audiobooks Free with a 30 day trial from Scribd. Sample User Manual 1. Introduction to this sample document This document is an example of a user-manual for an Online Classroom.

The audience for the document includes both instructors and students. The assumption was that the users are not very technically savvy, so both the application and the user manual had to be intuitive and easy to use.

I have included the original Table of Contents to illustrate how much detail the manual provided. Following that is one section of the manual, so the reader understands my writing style. All references to any proprietary information has been removed. Lugo 2. Lugo 3. You are about to experience the excitement of live, online learning over the Internet. The Online Classroom eliminates geographic constraints, bringing participants together from anywhere in the world to interact in real-time.

This User Manual provides a detailed description of all the Classroom features. We are sure you will find the Classroom easy to use. Online Classroom Interface sample user manual. Lugo 4. Instructor Control Panel Slide List This feature allows Instructors to push presentations, websites, graphics and images for use in the Online Classroom.

Instructors can create multiple slide lists with an unlimited number of slides per list. The Slide List is automatically loaded whenever an instructor enters a classroom. The instructor can then choose which list to present, and all the slides associated with that list will be loaded into the classroom.

Selecting slides to use in the Classroom 1. My Lesson List will display, showing all the slide lists you created. In My Lesson List, click on the desired slide list. All the slides for that list will be displayed in My Slide List. I bet most of you have had similar experiences. A great user manual or product guide shows your customers that you care not just about whether they buy your product, but whether they have a truly great experience actually using it. Customers who feel that you care about them beyond their wallet will keep coming back to you.

If you want them to shout to the world about how much they love your products and services, providing awesome user documentation is an essential part of that post-purchase experience.

Having great user documentation helps out your support team in two major ways. Your product support team can use documentation to help better support your customers when they ask for help. When you include essential pieces, such as a table of contents or index, they can quickly find the information they need. Even though each product is unique and will require different elements to create truly great user docs, there are some end user documentation best practices to follow no matter what.

No one wants to feel dumb, and language that makes your customer feel that way is certainly no way to foster a great experience. Use simple, plain language whenever possible to help your customers understand even the most complex concepts.

It sounds like a no-brainer, but writing in plain language about a product or service you know front-to-back is more difficult than you might think. Write the documentation in an easy-to-read way.

Keep documentation as simple as possible to achieve its goal. Long blocks of text and pages tightly packed with written and graphic content can make user guides or manuals feel intimidating and unfriendly. Customers who are intimidated by your user materials are far more likely to call your support team for help than they are to try to solve their questions on their own.

Visual content, including images, annotated screenshots, graphics, and videos, quickly shows someone how your product works. Recent research from TechSmith shows that people actually absorb visual information faster and perform tasks better when instructions are provided with visual or video content.

Visual content also helps break up long blocks of text and can help eliminate a lot of the text that makes many user guides or manuals feel intimidating and unpleasant. Popular ways of including visual content in user documentation include screenshots , screen recordings , tutorial videos , and more.

Have you heard of simplified graphics? Sometimes called simplified user interface or SUI , simplified graphics take images of a user interface or other graphic and — just as the name suggests — simplifies them. Every product solves a problem. Naturally, this will involve product features, but highlight them in the context of helping the user get to the reason they bought your product in the first place — to solve a specific problem.

For example, our Camtasia and Snagit tutorials yes, tutorial videos can be a form of documentation highlight specific features, but they do so in the context of why someone might use that particular feature. Good documentation needs a hierarchy of headings and subheadings that lets a user know what each section will show them.

And that hierarchy should follow a logical flow that helps the user learn to use your product in the most helpful way. Start with the easy stuff first and then, as your users build their knowledge, show them the advanced features. A table of contents provides your customers a simple, efficient, and familiar way to quickly find a solution to their question or problem. It should include all the major headings and subheadings as described above.

There was a time when most user documentation was printed. Now, in an era where just about everyone has access to a smartphone, it makes more sense to create electronic documentation. Like a table of contents, searchable content gives users easier access to your content and helps them find solutions on their own. Create accessible content.

This means ensuring that electronic documentation adheres to standards of accessibility for people who may be blind or visually impaired, deaf or hard of hearing, or may have cognitive disabilities.

Remember, many of your customers need this to understand and fully access your user documentation. Design materials with your customers in mind. Make it usable and friendly.