But there are complex tools, which scare you to death. You simply feel lost and have no clue what to do with it, though you know it can solve your problem. For such complex tools or applications which are highly technical, step by step instructions do help a lot. I am speaking from experience

Sure… does that mean you and I will be able to handle the petroleum refinery plant without instructions..? Of course we will not be able to… but we aren’t the learners… there is a separate batch of people whose job it is to… and any tool THEY use should be intuitive to THEM…

I am not being bitter here – but think of it… don’t you think design should be usable…? without instructions?
Guidance perhaps is required in some places… and maybe some nuances, best practices and stuff too… but not INSTRUCTIONS perse… Hell I dont know quite a few shortcuts in MS-Word… but I didnt require ‘instruction’ to learn it… i required an interest… the ability to randomly try out stuff without managing to bring down the system (though I am sure we all have managed to bring down a few systems in our time), and perhaps somebody to prod me along… a lot of things… but not instruction…
I am not claiming the MS-Word is great design… but it is definitely usable… and successful… and it is a great TOOL… it does not make me a better writer – but it helps me write well. It is thus good design.

So… coming back to writing instructions…
For a more traditional POV… writing instructions should pass through a few filters:
Is it accurate? (correctness)
Is it adequate? (completeness)
Is it appropriate? (usability)
Is it articulate? (understandable)

I guess if these (top of the mind) filters are followed – then what is written is indeed ‘precise’…

Any other filters you guys can think of?

This why I believe in end to end tutorials for software products. In such tutorials, you can capture some real life scenarios.

Instead of simply listing instructions in the manual, the technical
writers might also give ample real life examples to explain concepts.

A manual with lot of examples/scenarios is sure to become a hit.

Manuals also tend to be less task based and only from a perspective of how to use some feature. It misses the connections between the features quite often. Manuals need to prepare the user for every thing they may encounter from Install to using the product. I feel a lot of research needs to be done and the TW should be able to use the product themselves, run into the real problems that a user will, and then write the documents. That would be the real value a manual can bring.

Manuals need to address problems more that ideal situations.

Just my thoughts… and thanks for bringing up this topic.

Sreya

I agree most help manuals are not very useful.

However I would like to mention NetBeans documentation: http://www.netbeans.org/kb/index.html

This documentation really helped me learn about business processes, web services and so many other technology related stuff. It would not have been possible for me to ask someone and learn all this.

I guess well written help manuals really turn out to be useful and help you learn things the product on your own.

I usually resort to the internet, asking a developer or just Rnd myself. Takes longer but you will certainly reach a resolution this way and not referring a manual. I even have feedback that developers never resort to referring to a manual for similar reasons.