Documentation Design & Development
Would you like to...
- create user manuals that people will actually refer to and use?
- give your documents a consistent and professional "look and feel"?
- reduce and simplify maintenance efforts on your current systems documentation?
If so, I can help. Check these out and then get in touch with me.
On a regular basis, I encounter documents with spacebar-created indentations and tabs, consecutive paragraphs with unexplainable font changes, and my "favourite" — lengthy reports where everything is formatted individually so that paragraphs, headings, and subheadings are inconsistent and cannot be made to be consistent without a massive, migraine-inducing effort.
Someone has obviously said, "Styles? We don't need no stinkin' styles!"
You know what? Yes, you do.
"Uglydocumentitis"
This epidemic used to puzzle me, given all the choices in software to make printed documents look half decent. However, most people don't bother to learn very much beyond the basics. I suppose I understand why. It's difficult to find the time and some people just aren't "wired" to absorb this stuff easily. It's also true that people who don't use advanced features on a regular basis tend to forget them anyway.
On the other hand, just because no one at your shop has the skills to make something look professional is no excuse to leave it as is. Let's face it — even the best manuals and reports are not commonly described as "engrossing". If it doesn't look halfway inviting, the experience will be all the more painful for your poor readers.
Looks Count
If you have something to communicate and/or sell, you should always do so to your best advantage. The "whole package" encompasses not just the message, but the medium as well. And it doesn't have to cost you a bundle. If you already have the contents, the process of designing the "look and feel" of a report or manual (i.e., establishing standard formatting via reusable templates) is relatively easy.
Check out some examples here.
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