Technical Writing: Layout Your Document

When you’re starting out as a technical author, one of the challenges you’ll face is how to design a document to reach your audience the way you want it to. The good news is that by answering a few simple questions and keeping your goals in mind, this isn’t very hard to do. So let’s take a look at how we got there.

What is document design?

The design phase can happen as part of your project planning or after you’ve spent some time analyzing your audience. Audience analysis is highly recommended for first-time writers.

You have to be able to answer these key questions:

What is the scope of the document?

All this means is that you need to understand what you will include in your document, before you start writing it. You can further develop your scope by strictly defining the purpose of the document and the audience it needs to reach.

What format will your document be in?

This helps you choose the tools in which you will create your document, after all, if it is intended for online help, then using Microsoft Word may not be the best solution.

What will the document be like?

If it’s a product manual you might want a professionally produced glossy booklet, if it’s an internal guide then printing/photocopying on A4 may suffice. For online work, the usability of the part may override the formatting, and so on.

How will you structure the information?

Most documents will have a formal structure, either hierarchical, linear, horizontal (or circular), or vertical if they are for print. Online jobs will have a more informal structure, it doesn’t really matter which one you choose as long as you stick with it.

What are the goals of document design?

give the right impression – don’t forget that technical authors write for clients, they must be happy with the final product.

Easy to use – this usually means easy to navigate in the way the user wants to see it.

achieve understanding – if your reader does not understand your material, there is definitely a problem.

Facilitates learning – Ideally, your documentation should be memorable so that the reader no longer has to struggle with using the product. Visual aids are a key component to success here, pictures really do speak louder than words.

If you keep these key concepts in mind and can answer those four basic questions, your design is likely to be a winner.