Structuring
Technical Documentation
What documents should you provide? Printed user manuals (PDF), online help (HTML), or both?
What sections should each of the documents contain? In which order?
What navigational aids can you provide to make sure that your readers actually find the needed information? (Let’s face it: Nobody is going to read your manual from start to finish.)
Designing
Technical Documentation
How should the layout of your documents look like? What paper size, screen size, colors, fonts, line length, line spacing, paragraph styles, character styles, table styles … should you set up?
What makes a design user-friendly so that readers can grasp and memorize the meaning of your texts easily?
What makes a document template author-friendly so that …
… you can apply styles efficiently?
… the layout process can be automated as much as possible?
… you can easily change styles at any time if you need to?
Writing
Technical Documentation
How can you write so that everyone understands what you mean?
How can you simplify topics, sections, sentences, and even single words?
Which terms should you use in technical documentation, and which terms should you avoid?
Frequent spelling and punctuation issues.
Visualizing
Technical Documentation
Where and when are images, videos, or interactive content superior to text in a manual?
How should you design images and videos in general?
Tips on creating images that show physical devices in particular.
Tips on creating images that show software in particular (screenshots).
Tips on creating and embedding effective instructional videos.