Boring Work Made Easy: Free Templates for Creating Manuals by Nataly Birch W hichever boring and insipid creating a manual usually is, whether you are a developer/manufacturer or an end-user, you simply cannot do without one. Oct 25, 2016 How to Use User Manual Template. This user guide template file is created with A6 size, 1/4 of A4 size. Most of user guide are written in those or smaller size to make it fit in product boxes, especially if the product has a small size like a mobile phone. And this template uses mobile phone terms as written samples.
Most of us don’t think about how to write a training manual until we meet customers, co-workers, or students repeatedly asking the same questions. Still, you can’t appreciate the availability of a comprehensive training manual template more than after answering the same questions several times per day. Have you ever been in this situation? Even if you haven’t (yet), read these step-by-step instructions and use our training manual templates and a special-purpose tool to create an awesome training manual and never suffer from a lack of user documentation.
Training manuals are essential for any process related to training or onboarding – be it customer support, employee training, task delegation, new hire onboarding, or online learning. Once, I was working with three new employees who kept asking similar questions regularly – that is when I understood the true value of training and theonboarding process. That is why I have prepared this extremely useful article and training manual template for you – read on to find it!
A winning training manual takes the employee on a seamless journey from an understanding of training objectives right down to equipping the employee with the relevant skills to execute the task on hand. If you are writing a technical user guide or process documentation for e-learning purposes, or for archival in your organization’s server, a good training manual should be easy to understand, intuitive enough for the viewer to manoeuvre through and well sectioned for easy reference. According to theAssociation for Talent Development of the United States (ATD), 45% of learning hours in an average organization were developed via online or e-learning methods in 2017, and this is an increase of 41% vs. 2015.
Understanding how to write a training manual is an inherent skill necessary for the success and continuity of businesses. Read on to discover 5 steps on how to write a training manual and find a training manual template enclosed.
Step 1. Identify The Objectives of the Training Manual
It’s crucial to identify the objectives of the training program as this will set the tone and manner of the training manual and determine its success. According to a report by24×7 Learning “Workplace Learning – 2015,” only 11% of learners admitted to applying the skills learnt from training received to their job. This highlights the importance of ascertaining learner’s needs and mapping them against organization objectives for integration into the training program.
Some common training manual objectives include:
- On-boarding of new employees and acclimatization to organizational job culture
- Up-skilling existing employees with new skills required for their job
- Improving soft skills an employee lacks to address gaps in a periodic performance review
- Reducing the number of accidents by providing safety tips to workers
- Changing employee attitudes and increasing productivity
- Preparing employees for promotion by imparting advanced skill sets
Whichever objective your training manual strives to achieve, starting out by outlining the objectives will help you identify the successive important elements of the training program to create a cohesive flow.
Step 2. Identify the Target Audience
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A training manual can be as effective as a trainer skilled in connecting with the target audience and making the learners understand the content. Whether you are an external or internal trainer, understanding the organization’s objectives, culture and target audience will help you adopt the right approach to deliver training materials. Write your training manual template keeping in mind the demographics and psychological behaviors of the learners, their backgrounds, their jobs, industry, and language proficiency. By understanding the subtle nuances of your target audience, you will avoid developing a training manual template with a low completion rate, or result in recurring on-the-job errors that the training manual failed to address.
Step 3. Select Tools
Now that you have identified your training objectives and target audience, it is time to select the necessary tools and develop your training materials. For this purpose, we strongly recommend usingStepShot Guides. If you’re wondering how to write a training manual, this tool will help you create it with no hassle and minimal time expenditures. As usual, this software documentation tool is used to create training manuals, user guides, product manuals, video tutorials, help articles, and other docs designed to teach a user how to use a program or how to accomplish a procedure. Thus, ERP consultants, IT support managers, HR managers, small business owners and CEOs, and customer support agents frequently use StepShot Guides to create training manuals for their customers or coworkers.
How to write a training manual with StepShot Guides
- LaunchStepShot Guides.
- Go through the procedure you want to explain (the tool will automatically capture your actions as annotated screenshots and step descriptions).
- Edit and improve the training manual using the comprehensive editing toolset provided by the app.
- Export the training guide to PDF, Word, HTML, WordPress, video, or as images.
How To Create A User Manual Template Free
Just imagine, by launching StepShot Guides, you can automatically capture screenshots and effortlessly create a training manual and a training manual template with the help of customizable templates and export them into whatever format you need. Owing to a simplified capturing procedure, you won’t need to use a bunch of programs like a screenshotting tool, image editor, and word processor. Similarly, you no longer need to toggle between different software programs to input comments, remarks or icons to draw attention to specific screenshots. StepShot Guides alone will substitute all these tools and you’ll be free of dull and monotonous copypasting in several tools. In addition, StepShot Guides offers integration with popular organization platforms includingConfluence, WordPress, and StepShot Cloud. Research indicates that StepShot cuts short 90% of the time required for a software documentation routine, thanks to its effortless cross-integration across platforms.
Step 4. Develop Your Training Materials
While designing your training materials, keep the following tips in mind:
- Introduce the objective of the training manual and what the audience can achieve at the end of the course.
- Inform the audience that there will be an assessment and a minimum qualifying mark in order to pass the assessment. Failing which, a retake of the assessment is required until the qualifying mark is met.
- Paint the step-by-step scenario or solution you would like to present. For example, if there has been a decrease in the performance rates caused by poor experience in software usage, a user guide, video tutorial, or anSOP can be used to demonstrate to trainees how to use the program.
- Use a combination of text andvisuals to break the monotony and increase the learners’ engagement.
- Promote interactivity throughout the training manual by making the learners click on icons to reveal information or launch a video.
- Include problem-solving discussion topics to encourage interactivity and feedback from the learner.
- Summarize the key points and recapitulate key learning at the end of each module to create reinforcement and instill long-term memory.
- For process guides, providestep-by-step screenshots in a sequence that the actual user will go through. This clarity will minimize user frustration and free the trainer’s time from managing more follow-up queries from the learner post-training.
- As a general rule of thumb, keep the learning experience up to 20 minutes maximum. Exceeding this duration will cause the learner’s attention to waiver and the learner will be more prone to fast forward through the training manual, causing the learner to fail the assessment or retake the assessment multiple times.
- If face-to-face training is conducted, do not hesitate to trigger a follow-up online quiz after the training session to assess the individual learners’ knowledge and reinforce the information that was presented during the classroom session.
Step 5. Develop an Assessment Component
Template For A Manual
Having an assessment or quiz at the end of training is crucial as it provides a measurement of the training efficacy to the trainer and sets success benchmarks to the learner. Bear in mind that the assessment must not be too technical or mathematically challenging. A good and reasonable passing test score for e-learning is 80%, as this implies that the learner has a robust understanding that will allow the individual to operate in the desired manner.
Step 6. Get Feedback and Perform Usability Testing
Although you already know how to write a training manual, ensure that your training manual is proofread by another team member and another individual with your learner’s profile. By obtaining a fresh perspective, you will be able to single out typo errors and ensure that the content is accurate, clear and comprehensive. Do not forget to test the training on individuals who are like your learners. Usability test will allow you to identify system bugs that will otherwise be a blind spot.
If you’re still not sure how to write a training manual, make use of this training manual template as of an example.
DOWNLOAD a Training Manual Template in PDFAccording to theAssociation for Talent Development, it is not surprising that companies who invest in training initiatives enjoy 24% higher profit margins than those who spend less. Furthermore, knowing how to write a training manual and an effective user guide helps organizations reduce operational errors, thus creating a positive client experience and expedited execution of new knowledge at a faster speed. In the existing increasingly competitive business environment, efficiency, a speed of delivery, and cost management will set you apart from the pack. This underscores the importance of documentation ninjas as a valuable asset to organizations, and with the right tool like StepShot Guides, anyone can become a documentation ninja.
User Manual Templates: Are you launching any new product? Are you looking for preparing User manual for that product? If yes, then consider downloading these well-prepared user manual templates. A user manual is a step by step guide or like a booklet of few pages which is launched with every new product or service to let people understand how this product or service works. Whenever a company launches any new product or service, then people have a lot of common queries or how to in mind. That is the reason companies prepare an user manual which guide the people about the product or service. Basically, the User manual is a small booklet or written guideline on few pages that explains how to handle or operate something using step by step guides and instructions available in the user manual.
Normally, user manuals are prepared by manufacturers for products or machines to make people understand how to operate, install, or handle that product effectively.
Free User Manual Templates
Here you will find different types of manual templates such as user manual templates, instruction manual templates, training manual templates, word manual templates, and HR manual templates. If you are looking for any of these manual templates then scroll down below and download your template. A “Download” button is available below each template image preview.
Instruction Manual Templates
Instruction manual basically provides instructions to the user about how to operate, how to handle, what to do, how to do etc. This type of information is included in the instruction manual to instruct people using any product, machine or software. Download technical instruction manual template in PDF format from below.
Training Manual Templates
Want to announce the policies and procedures pertaining to the operations? If yes, then download a training manual template sample from below in .zip format. This training manual template is available to download for users at free of cost.
Sample of User Manual Templates Example
A well-prepared template can make your work a lot easier, all you need to do is pick up a right template considering your work requirement in mind, download the template in .doc format, and then make changes in the template as per your work requirement. Isn’t that easy? Try this out and see how much ease it brings.
User Manual Template Word
Download a .doc template from below and then customize it as per your own requirement.
HR Manual Templates
Every office has HR manual which clearly indicates the clauses, protocols, codes to be followed by the employees or the entire team of the office. These manuals cover several topics like recruitment, employee benefits, employee termination, etc.
Source: (https://www.template.net/)
A user manual guide comes with every new product, a technical device, machine or software to make users understand what to do and what not to. Information about how to safely operate the device, or how to handle it effectively is provided in a user manual so that a user can use it safely without any problem. A user manual is also known as user guide, user instruction manual, and instruction manual etc. Apart from written manual guides, many companies prepare user manuals like a video as well. If you want to create a user manual for any product or machine then use these templates to ease your work to a certain extent.
We have gathered these user manual templates only for our users so that they will get a wide variety of user manual templates at one place only. If you like them or find them useful then please share with other people as well who might be in search of these templates. If you find any issue in downloading a template, then please let us know through the comment section. Subscribe to our blog by entering your Email address in the right sidebar. Keep visiting for more and more useful templates.