Help instructions for software and IT systems
When you need to supply help instructions to staff or to customers, this website will help you.
What are help instructions?
The term 'help instructions' means different things to different people:
- In a software development context, the term help instructions can refer to online help (on-screen help, Help) or to printed user guides.
- In a general context, the term the term help instructions usually refers to instructions that a company supplies with its products, or for its staff.
The requirement for help instructions
Help instructions are needed for many reasons: regulatory, safety, staff efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
Clear help instructions can decrease the support costs of IT service desks and can increase the sales of software.
Producing help instructions
Producing clear instructions that help people is difficult. (Think about the low-quality instructions that you see. If designing help instructions is easy, why are many instructions very bad?)
In many organisations, technical people produce the help instructions. Sometimes, technical people produce excellent help instructions. Sometimes, technical people do not produce good help instructions.
Ideally, use a professional technical writer to produce help instructions. For a discussion of the things that you need to think about, see the buyers' guide to technical writing services, which was written by a group of freelance technical writers.
Freelance technical writers for help instructions
For software help instructions, use TechScribe. TechScribe has designed help instructions for UK software companies since 1999.
To find a technical writer for help instructions in subjects that are not related to software, do one of the following things:
- Use a specialist recruitment agency.
- Search the Quality Independent Authors group.