Why You Should Have User Centric Tutorials for Software Products

When you create tutorials  for a software product, it is very natural to capture the following:

Description about the product features
All tasks that one can do with each of the product features
Steps to complete each of the tasks

Most software product tutorials are product feature centric.
Here is an example  of a product feature centric tutorial for Camtasia. The very title [...]

A Short Video Tutorial on How Layers Work in Photoshop

I created this tutorial video in 2007 when i was exploring Photoshop myself. I had real difficulty understanding the concept of layers. That’s when I thought I must create this video which might be of help to many other beginners like me. Some people found this video useful and have left their comments.  A few [...]

Quick Tips to Create Software Product Tutorials

A software product tutorial essentially helps users work with the features of the product. So it is mandatory that tutorials have concise and precise tasks and steps to work with the product. Most importantly software product tutorials must be help users achieve something by using the product.
 
Things you must do before you begin
 
·     Explore [...]

A Scenario Based Approach for Software Product Tutorials?

I just read Cammy Bean’’s post Best Practices for Software Training and here she mentions about scenario based approach for software product training and I think this indeed is an interesting idea.
I have seen scenario based approach used for software demos. However I haven’t see any scenarios being used for tutorials.
Product Demos are not the [...]

What We Can Learn About Instructional Design from Post-It Notes – An Interesting Read

Tom Kuhlmann has again come up with an interesting post. This time it is on Cheat Sheets.
Some days back I had written a post on Cheat Sheets too.
I love creating Cheat Sheets. They are simple, easy to create and too useful.
I create Cheat Sheets in XML format.
Here is a sample template. Please note the words [...]

Online SoftwareTutorials – Are they useful or messy?

I love playing with software applications and tools. If I have to learn to use an e-learning tool like Captivate or say software products like a BRMS or BPM, what I usually do is hunt for some online tutorials. I follow these tutorials and try and build something in the context of real life [...]