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Instruction Set

The document provides guidance on writing technical documentation. It discusses important considerations for technical documents such as understanding the intended users, goals, and stakeholders. It emphasizes learning about users through personas and research to ensure the documentation meets their needs and goals. The document also outlines key parts of technical documentation like introductions, lists of materials and steps, troubleshooting guidance, and visual elements to aid comprehension. Technical writers are advised to test documentation by having others complete the described tasks.

Uploaded by

Will Kurlinkus
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
12 views

Instruction Set

The document provides guidance on writing technical documentation. It discusses important considerations for technical documents such as understanding the intended users, goals, and stakeholders. It emphasizes learning about users through personas and research to ensure the documentation meets their needs and goals. The document also outlines key parts of technical documentation like introductions, lists of materials and steps, troubleshooting guidance, and visual elements to aid comprehension. Technical writers are advised to test documentation by having others complete the described tasks.

Uploaded by

Will Kurlinkus
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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TECHNICAL DOCUMENTS: KEY POINTS


1. Users

Difference between a user and an audience.


Who are your users?
What do you know about their skills, their background knowledge, their demographics?
How can you find out more about your users? Why might you want to?

2. Goals

What are your users goals?


Primary, secondary, tertiary?
How can you help different types of users achieve their different goals efficiently?
Think RAM: Random Access MemoryThink dual stream reading.

3. Stakeholders
Beyond your users, who else has a stake in you being successful at the document you are
creating? The difference between a client and their users/customers.

4. KPIs: Key Performance Indicators


Before you start creating a document (or any project) for someone, set Key Performance Indicators.
Markers that show that you have been successful at your work and that show the client when you
are done.

5. SMEs: Subject Matter Experts


. Who can you gather information from in order to make you texts in the best manner
possible?

6. Textual Tests
.

How can you test that your document makes sense and is useful.

INSTRUCTIONS: FORMAL PARTS


1. Intro and Background
What will these instructions help me do?
Is there anything I need to know to be able to use these instructions effectively?
Includes subject, purpose of procedure, intended readers, scope, organization, conventions,
motivation, and safety.

2. List of Materials
Before she begins to write the genre/follow the set of instructions, is there certain information
that your reader needs to collect? In order to write a lab report, for instance, your reader will
have to have completed an experimentare there special things to pay attention to/collect
while performing the experiment?
Where do I gather materials from?
Are there tools I need? What are they and what do they look like?

3. List of Steps and Sub-steps


Once Im ready to start, what exactly do I do?
Written for scanning, rapid comprehension, action-oriented headings, branching steps clearly
represented, notes on what might go wrong on specific steps.
How can you incorporate bits and pieces of the examples from your genre analysis?

4. Trouble Shooting
Something isnt working correctly. What do you predict it is and how do I fix it?

5. Glossary of Key Terms


Key terms that you might have to use that I might not know.
Key websites and other sources of information that might prove useful.

INSTRUCTIONS: STEPS TO WRITING


1. Users: Consider who they are, what their goals are, and KPIs.
Make a user persona.
2. Prewrite: Write down the steps as you think they should occur
off the top of your head.
3. Process Analysis: Perform the process yourself and add to your
notes.
4. SME: Interview subject matter experts (other people who have
done the process) and ask them questions about tips, tricks,
and where problems have occurred for them in the past. Make
an empathy map based on these interviews.
5. Get into more detailed instructionsthinking of every small
detail. Think about how you might group steps and substeps,
create a visual hierarchy, use numbers, bullets, and headings.
6. Add visuals that document particularly tricks steps, label
interworking pieces, break down parts, or summarize
data/steps.
7. Create the other parts of documentation surrounding the
actual instructions list
8. Test your instructions by having someone who hasnt done the
process follow them.

INSTRUCTIONS: VISUALS
Visuals serve several purposes in technical manuals:
1. They illustrate complex processes: Show me how it looks, how its constructed,
how it works.
2. They provide visual summaries: Think infographicshighlight key info
3. They break up blocks of text
Formatting Visuals:
. All visuals should have a:
1. Figure number or table Title
2. A caption: Dont just show me
a picture. Explain to me what is going
on using a specific caption and some
labels.
3.

An in-text reference

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