Blog
Finding the Best Format for Your User Guides
Back in the day, you had one choice for publishing user guides: the printed manual. But with the advent of the internet and digital content, your choices seem almost limitless. With all those options, how do you decide what’s the best format for creating user guides?
read moreWhen a User Guide Goes Viral, Your Company Is Doing Something Right!
If you’ve got people who aren’t even using your product flocking to your user instructions, you’re doing something right!
read more7 Tips to Finding the Right Tone of Voice
A lot of technical writing has a stiff and formal tone of voice, probably because the tech writer thinks an instruction manual should give “just the facts, ma’am.” But a stiff and formal tone of voice can make your user guide less helpful, not more. So what tone of voice is the right one? Here’s seven tips to help you create the right tone of voice for your user guides.
read moreCan Your User Guide Be Too Helpful?
One of the established gold standards of good tech writing is completeness. There’s nothing worse than a user guide with only a few vague lines of text or an unlabeled diagram. But too much information is just as bad. So how much is too much information?
read moreCheat Sheet for Better Writing: False Phrases and Style Slip-ups
There’s not much that will destroy your professional credibility faster than sounding ignorant or uneducated. Using the wrong phrase or mangling a word is a great way of sounding like you just fell off the turnip truck (Need proof?). But good writing goes beyond good spelling and good grammar—you need good style, too. So here is the third and final cheat sheet to better writing. Watch out for these false phrases and stylistic slip-ups!
read moreCheat Sheet for Better Writing: Gorgeous Grammar
A lot of people are shy writers because they’re afraid they’ll embarrass themselves grammatically. Maybe they’ll dangle a participle in public or misplace their modifiers.
Here’s a quick cheat sheet to guide you with some of the most common grammatical errors. Refer to it frequently and you’ll find your business writing improving in no time!
read moreCheat Sheet for Better Writing: Common Confusions
If you’re intimidated by the idea of writing—especially writing anything that will actually be read—you’re not alone. Often it’s the subtle differences in similar words that trip us up. So here’s a quick cheat sheet to better writing that clarifies some of the worst offenders in the English language.
read moreHow to Qualify Your Content with Users
The danger about writing a user guide is the possibility that you’re completely missing the mark. How do you make sure you’re providing the right content in the right way for your users? Easy—just ask ‘em! Here’s just a few ways you can qualify your content with your customers.
read moreWhy and How to Use Branding in User Guides
You brand your website and Facebook page. You brand your product and packaging. You probably even brand your office space. But do you brand your user guide? If not, you’re missing an opportunity and sending an unintentional message to your customers.
Here are five simple ways to brand your user guide.
read more7 Tips for Easy-to-Read Technical Content
In general, good technical writing sounds natural and conversational but also professional. You want to be clear and concise, so make sure you provide enough information, but as efficiently as possible. Here are 7 tips for creating readable technical content.
read more
I’m Bill Kerschbaum, the owner and sole employee of Intext Writing. My technical writing background includes industrial software, medical devices, robotics, video game-style simulations, and more. I also create web content for businesses and occasionally write guest articles for blogs. I live and work in Ann Arbor, Michigan.