You want to help your users, so you write a gorgeous 75-page user manual, which answers every question they might have about using a new product or service. But nobody reads the user manual, even when it has the answers they need.
That’s where a quick start guide comes in. A quick start guide helps customers — internal or external — get started. This type of documentation is more popular than a user manual. “Quick” suggests brevity, and “start” shows you understand users are at their neediest when getting started. A quick start guide doesn’t replace your 75-page user manual; it accompanies it. The guide focuses on helping users answer their early questions:
- “What can this product do?”
- “How do I set this product up?”
- “What are my options with this product?”
- “Any cautionary notes before I begin using this product?”
A Quick Start Guide Provides Just Enough Help
A quick start guide won’t overwhelm users the way a user manual or searchable knowledgebase can. Your quick start guide can give your users that “I’ve got this!” feeling. Yes, creating a quick start guide will cost you time and effort, but preventing calls from new users is sweet payback.
Two Types of Quick Start Guides
Before you write your quick start guide, consider which of the two types will answer the majority of your users’ getting-started questions.
- A Conceptual Quick Start Guide introduces the main concepts of your product or service. Let’s say you have an updated version of your project management software. Your conceptual quick start guide could have these four sections: Create Custom Reports, Monitor Staff Schedules, Share Files, and Prioritize Tasks Across Multiple Projects. There’s no predetermined sequence to the four sections of this quick start guide, so we refer to this type of guide as “conceptual.” It’s simply teaching the main concepts related to using the software. With a conceptual guide, users choose which section to read first, or they may just read one section and skip the rest.
- A Procedural Quick Start Guide lists the steps users should complete before they begin using the product or service. Users need a procedural quick start guide if they don’t know what the get-started steps are or if they must complete the steps in a specific order. For example, a procedural quick start guide to getting licensed in a trade would help applicants understand what they must do before they apply: upload transcripts, pass a test, pay a fee, or schedule an interview. They can complete those four tasks in any order they like, but they must get them all done.
The second type of procedural quick start guide explains how to take steps in a specific order. You’d provide this type of procedural guide to explain how to set up a new user account for an online service portal, for example. You’d number the steps in this guide to show the specific sequence of tasks the constituent must complete in order:
1. Go to citystate.gov
2. Click the Create an Account button
3. Fill out the Name and Address form.
4. Fill out the registration form completely.
Though some quick start guides are a blend of conceptual and procedural, each should have a single, overall purpose. If you understand the type of help your users need, you’ll know which type of guide to produce.
Sample Quick Start Guides
These Quick Start Guides will help you prepare to write your own:
- GoPro’s Quick Start Guide to the HERO+ LCD camera. This Quick Start Guide is just seven short pages. For comparison, take a look at the full-length, 30-page HERO+ LCD User Manual.
- Military One Source’s colorful 5-page Quick Start Guide: DS Logon Service that explains how to get started with the DOD’s Self-Service Logon, which allows access to several websites with a single user name and password.
- The Federal Highway Administration’s Quick Start Guide to Using CMFs (Crash Modification Factors). While I’ve never used CMFs myself, I found the steps in the 2-page guide easy to recognize.
Leslie O’Flahavan is a get-to-the point writer and an experienced, versatile writing instructor. E-WRITE owner since 1996, Leslie leads customized writing courses for Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations.
Leslie helps the most stubborn, inexperienced, or word-phobic employees at your organization improve their writing skills, so they can do their jobs better. As a result of her work, Leslie’s clients improve their customer satisfaction ratings, reduce training cycles, improve productivity, and limit legal risk. Leslie is a LinkedIn Learning author of six writing courses including Writing in Plain Language, Technical Writing, and Writing for Social Media. She’s the cohost of the monthly LinkedIn Live broadcast “Fix This Writing!”
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