Rules and suggestions for drawing up a good technical manual

The Directives indicate to us the topics that must be treated in the manual. Companies that use only Directives to draw up manuals are confronted with a cruder reality: the manual is unusable even if it deals with all the topics required by the directives.

Calls to technical assistance increase, consumer groups raise the yellow card, nobody uses the manual. Its maintenance is difficult and you always have to make compromises with the editing tool, the update times and the translation costs are out of control.

What are the causes? Why are seemingly compliant manuals judged abroad illegible?
What are the expectations of users abroad? What are the real reasons for increasing costs? How will digitalization and industry 4.0 put the current drafting processes in crisis? What does “technical communication” mean and what are the skills required of a technical communicator?

The seminar, organized in collaboration with Writec, a company adhering to the Endorsed Suppliers Network, aims to deepen the basics of technical communication with regards to the design and drafting of instruction manuals.

Objectives

• Knowing how to evaluate the quality of a manual
• Knowing how to understand how a good manual is made
• Recognize possible errors or problems with the instructions for use
• Understanding what is behind the design of instructions for use
• Understand the type of information you expect
• Compare your processes with the standard ones

Contents

• The instruction manual as part of the information surrounding the user
• Valuable elements of the instructions for use: security, coverage of topics, organization, texts, illustrations, formats and distribution
• Organization of a manual for a machine
• Organization of a manual for electronic devices
• Organization of a manual for software applications
• Regulatory Overview
• Translation processes and supporting software tools
• Editing processes and supporting software tools

Recipients

Technical documentation managers, technical writers in the mechanical, electronic and software fields.