Technical Documentation Services
from Authorgraphic
Manuals to Help your Readers to Understand
Our Technical Documentation Services help
by planning and writing your documentation, whether
as Online Help Guides or as printable
Manuals. As
professional technical writers, We provide first-class, professional
technical documentation for your readers to
understand.
Plain English
Many technical specialists have difficulty in "stepping
outside the box", and describing their system to
a completely new user, who may well be non-technical.
The result is documentation that may be technically
correct, but it's badly structured, readers can't
find the information easily, and it's so poorly
explained that they pick up the phone and call your
Help Desk.
Our careful use of Plain English techniques
makes sure that your target reader groups get the
best from your technical documentation.
Planning the Content
One common issue with documentation is the Content.
How much should you include? What can you safely
leave out?
Our planning techniques help to ensure that all
the necessary content is included, and anything
irrelevant is excluded. This keeps it concise.
Planning the Structure
A second common issue that people raise is about
the structure. What's the best sequence to arrange
the topics? Again, our planning techniques allow
this to be derived properly. We have long experience
as
technical authors of working with our clients to derive the best structure
for your target reader groups.
Indexing
Do your manuals have an Index-at-the-back?
A carefully-built Index allows users to find what
they want, quickly and easily. Most manuals don't
have an index: mine do. And it's the most useful
part of a manual. Think of the index as a sort of
search engine, which allows readers to find information
based on the thoughts and key words in their minds.
Our documentation specialists can do this for you.
The index is automatically updated when new content
is added.
MS Word
We write all manuals in MS Word so that,
when the job is finished, your own staff can continue
to do updates themselves. This happens as the product
evolves. Then you don't need to know how to use
specialist authoring software.
Good technical documentation Saves Money
If your customers resort to phoning your Help Desk
instead of reading the documentation, then this
may mean that they don't find your manuals and help
guides easy to use. We can help!
For many companies, the average cost of a support
call is around £25-£30 per call. (Work out your
costs per call.) Then work out how much you can
save if you reduce your calls by 10 a month? 30
a month? 100 a month?
Our manuals and help guides help your customers
to find information quickly, and then
understand the content easily. Then they can
get on with the job at hand, instead of calling
your Help Desk. In some companies, this can save
tens of thousands of pounds a year (if not
more), depending on your customer base and the quality
of existing documentation.
Training Courses
We run Technical Writing Courses: you can
learn the writing skills that benefit your
company. And you can use them for the rest of your
career.
