Navigating an intricate software application for the first time can seem like a foreign language—buttons, menus, and features can leave you feeling lost and frustrated.
This scenario highlights the critical role of online help documentation.
Effective help documentation guides users through the intricacies of your product or service, answering their questions and empowering them to achieve their goals. It helps transform confusion into clarity, turning frustrated users into confident champions.
In this blog, we’ll discuss how to create help documentation. We’ll also explore different types of online help documentation, best practices for writing them, and some top examples and tools.
What Is Help Documentation?
Help documentation is a collection of resources created to help users understand, use, and troubleshoot a product or service. It may include user manuals, FAQs, troubleshooting guides, and onboarding materials that provide step-by-step instructions, solutions to common issues, and explanations of various features.
Effective help documentation is clear and accessible and answers common user queries, minimizing the need for direct customer support and enhancing the user experience. For digital products, help documentation is often housed within a knowledge base that users can search for quick answers.
For example, a customer relationship management (CRM) platform can include different types of help documentation. It may include sections on setting up accounts, managing contacts, and utilizing key features. It may also provide visual guides on generating reports, troubleshooting login issues, or integrating the CRM with third-party tools.
Why Do You Need Online Help Documentation?
Without effective online help documentation, businesses may face common pain points that can hinder user satisfaction and increase support costs. You need to implement help documentation to tackle the following:
Overwhelming Support Requests
When users lack accessible resources, they’re more likely to seek help, burdening support teams and driving up business costs.
Customer Frustration
Users waste time searching for answers independently, which can lead to frustration and reduced satisfaction, particularly if they cannot find quick solutions.
Inconsistent Information Sharing
Without centralized documentation, users may receive inconsistent information from support teams, which can erode trust in the brand.
Difficulty in Training & Onboarding
Employees and customers may struggle to onboard smoothly, relying on word-of-mouth guidance rather than clear, accessible documentation.
Lost Opportunities for Self-Service
Self-service portals improve customer empowerment and satisfaction, but with online help documentation, users can independently troubleshoot or explore product features.
What Are the Different Types of Help Documentation?
Help documentation comes in different forms, each catering to various user needs and stages of the customer journey. Here are some of the most common types:
User Manuals
These are detailed guides that walk users through product features, setup, and usage. They serve as comprehensive resources for both new and advanced users.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
These are quick, straightforward answers to common queries that allow users to resolve issues independently and find solutions quickly.
Troubleshooting Guides
These are step-by-step instructions for diagnosing and fixing specific issues users may encounter, making it easier to solve problems without contacting support.
How-to Guides
These are practical instructions on performing specific tasks or using certain features, often enriched with visuals or videos for easy understanding.
Onboarding & Training Materials
These are targeted resources to help new users learn the product or service basics, providing a smooth start and reducing onboarding time.
Release Notes & Updates
This type of documentation informs users about new features, bug fixes, or improvements, helping them stay updated and effectively utilize the latest enhancements.
API Documentation
API documentation are technical guides aimed at developers, explaining how to integrate or interact with software applications or platforms.
What Are the Benefits of Online Help Documentation?
Online help documentation helps businesses streamline processes, improve user satisfaction, and scale support efforts. Here’s a closer look at these advantages:
Reduced Support Costs
Online documentation empowers users to solve their issues independently, cutting down on support queries. This enables customer support teams to prioritize complex cases, reducing support costs associated with high-ticket volumes and repetitive support tasks.
Enhanced User Experience
When users can easily find solutions to their questions, it improves their overall product experience. Accessible, well-organized documentation allows users to interact with products seamlessly, creating a positive experience that increases customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Better Efficiency for Internal Teams
Online documentation is an invaluable resource for employees, especially during onboarding and training. It provides a go-to reference for common questions and issues, helping new team members get up to speed faster without relying on senior staff and freeing experienced team members to focus on their roles.
Increased Knowledge Retention
Knowledge within an organization can be lost when employees leave or roles change. Documenting processes, product information, and troubleshooting guides online ensures that important knowledge is retained and is accessible, helping reduce the knowledge gap and maintaining continuity even as the organization grows.
Scalability in Customer Support
As a company scales, support demands naturally increase, and expanding support teams proportionally can be costly and inefficient. Online documentation offers a scalable solution, enabling businesses to meet growing demand without the need for extensive support staff.
How to Create an Online Help Documentation
Creating effective online help documentation involves several steps to ensure that it is user-friendly, informative, and meets the needs of both customers and internal teams. Here are the steps:
Determine Your Goals & Audience
Start by identifying the purpose of your help documentation and understanding your target audience. Clarify what users will achieve through the documentation and the level of detail they need.
For example, if your product is technical, your documentation may require more in-depth tutorials and troubleshooting sections.
Organize Key Topics & Content
Create an outline of major topics, subtopics, and essential information that needs to be included. Structuring content into categories, such as setup guides, FAQs, troubleshooting, and best practices, will improve navigation and allow users to find answers faster.
A clear outline makes the documentation more straightforward to maintain over time.
Create Clear & Concise Content
Use simple, straightforward language to explain complex ideas, avoiding jargon. Break down instructions into step-by-step processes and incorporate visuals such as screenshots, diagrams, and videos to enhance clarity.
Ensuring consistency in terminology across the documentation will prevent confusion and support a smooth user experience.
Add Search & Navigation Features
Implement search functionality to make it easy for users to locate information quickly. Additionally, clear headers, hyperlinks, and a table of contents allow users to navigate the document seamlessly.
Breadcrumbs and filters can also help improve users’ browsing experience.
Incorporate Interactive Elements & Media
Add interactive elements like walkthroughs, video tutorials, or GIFs for more complex steps or software processes.
Visual aids and multimedia elements break up text-heavy content, making the information more digestible and engaging for users.
Review & Test for Accuracy
Before publishing, have subject matter experts (SMEs) review the content to ensure it’s accurate and complete.
Conduct usability testing with a sample of actual users to gather feedback on navigation and content clarity. Address any gaps or confusing elements before the final release.
Publish & Collect Feedback
Publish the documentation on a platform that provides easy user access and implement a feedback mechanism, such as a rating system or comments section, to capture user input.
Continuous feedback collection allows you to understand users’ pain points and make improvements over time.
Regularly Update & Improve
Documentation should evolve alongside product updates and user feedback. Schedule regular reviews to keep content current, relevant, and responsive to user needs.
Regular updates help prevent outdated information from confusing users and keep your knowledge base valuable.
What Are the Best Practices for Creating Online Help Documentation?
Creating high-quality online help documentation involves following specific steps to ensure clarity, usefulness, and accessibility. Here are some best practices:
Understand Your Audience
Modify your content considering the knowledge level and needs of your audience. Technical users may benefit from detailed, in-depth explanations, while general users prefer simpler, straightforward instructions.
Understanding your audience helps ensure the documentation is relevant and accessible.
Organize Content Logically
Structure your content in a logical flow, with topics grouped by function or user needs.
Add a table of contents, headers, and breadcrumbs to guide users through the material and enable them to find the information they need quickly.
Write Clear & Concise Content
To make instructions easy to follow, use simple language, avoiding jargon where possible. Break down complex steps into a list format and use active voice for clarity.
Visual elements like screenshots, diagrams, or videos can also improve user understanding, making the content more engaging and accessible.
Prioritize Search Functionality
A robust, easy-to-use search function lets users locate answers quickly, especially in extensive help documentation.
Enhance search functionality by using keywords and tagging to ensure users find what they need without unnecessary steps.
Use Consistent Terminology & Style
Keep terminology, tone, and formatting consistent, as it helps create a cohesive user experience.
A style guide helps maintain uniformity across different sections and contributors, preventing confusion and promoting professionalism.
Incorporate User Feedback
Encourage users to provide feedback on articles or rate content, which can help identify gaps and areas for improvement.
Regularly review input to update and improve documentation per user expectations and evolving product features.
Update Regularly
Regular updates are essential for ensuring documentation stays accurate and relevant, especially following product updates or user feedback.
Set up a schedule for reviewing content and making necessary changes to keep the information current and valuable.
Make Content Accessible & Inclusive
Use accessible design principles, like alt text for images and color contrasts, to ensure the documentation is accessible to users with disabilities.
Avoid industry-specific jargon to make the documentation inclusive for a broad audience.
Which Are the Top Help Documentation Software & Tools?
Help documentation software simplifies the creation, management, and sharing of different types of documentation, like user guides, FAQs, and manuals, making information more accessible and enhancing user support. Here are some of the top tools:
1. ProProfs Knowledge Base – Best for Easily Creating Help Sites, Manuals & Private Knowledge Bases
ProProfs Knowledge Base‘s WYSIWYG editor, customizable templates, and multimedia support make creating engaging and informative articles quick and easy. Features like version control and co-authoring facilitate collaboration and ensure accuracy, while the platform’s powerful search functionality empowers users to find the information they need quickly.
It allows you to tailor the look and feel of your documentation to match your brand identity, creating a seamless and professional experience. Moreover, features like mobile responsiveness, multilingual support, and accessibility compliance ensure that your documentation reaches a broader audience and caters to diverse needs.
What You Will Like:
- Ability to set up roles and permissions, ensuring that only authorized personnel can view, edit, or manage specific documentation
- Advanced analytics tools that provide valuable insights into how documentation is being used
- Control the layout, format, and presentation of your knowledge base with the help of CSS
What You May Not Like:
- No downloadable or on-premise version
- Dark user interface option is not available.
Pricing:
Forever Free Plan with all the premium features for small teams. Paid plan starts at $49/author/month.
2. Scribe – Best for Generating Visual How-To Guides
Scribe is a help documentation software tool that enables users to create step-by-step guides automatically, streamlining the documentation process with minimal manual effort. It can capture and document processes as users perform tasks and record each step, including screenshots, mouse clicks, and typed input, to create detailed visual guides.
The platform’s editing tools allow users to refine captured instructions and screenshots, add annotations, and rearrange steps. This customization ensures that each guide is tailored and easy to follow, improving end-user clarity. It also supports seamless integration with other platforms, like ClickUp, Monday, Salesforce, etc.
What You Will Like:
- Version control and updating capabilities make it easy to keep guides up-to-date, especially when processes change
- Quickly document actions directly on the screen, which streamlines the creation of step-by-step guides
- Guides or “Scribes” can be easily shared via links or embedded into other sites and platforms
What You May Not Like:
- Once you’ve recorded your content, it becomes difficult to delete each slide one by one manually
- It’d be better if there were an easier way to omit multiple mistakes for a 40+ step scribe
Pricing:
Paid plan starts at $23/seat/month.
3. Zendesk – Best for Zendesk Suite Users
Zendesk enables support agents to contribute to the knowledge base quickly, capturing their expertise and making it readily available to customers. Its flexible theming options allow businesses to tailor the look and feel of their help center to match their brand identity, creating a seamless and professional user experience.
Also, features like multilingual support and mobile responsiveness ensure that your help documentation reaches a broader audience and caters to diverse needs. The platform helps businesses deflect support tickets, improve customer satisfaction, and free up support agents to focus on more complex issues.
What You Will Like:
- The share AI-powered article recommendations inside support tickets, flag old content for improvements and let agents draft new knowledge base articles
- Multilingual support allows businesses to create FAQs in multiple languages
- Analytics and reporting features provide insights into how customers interact with the FAQ pages.
What You May Not Like:
- Gets pricey as you add on features
- No automatic resizing option for the reply text area, particularly noticeable on Chrome.
Pricing:
Paid plans start at $55/month/user.
4. Confluence – Best for Team Collaboration on Documents
Confluence’s strength lies in its ability to create a structured and interconnected knowledge base that’s easy to navigate and maintain. It allows you to organize your help documentation into spaces and pages, creating a hierarchical structure that guides users to the necessary information.
The platform’s rich text editor, templates, and macros simplify content creation and ensure consistency. Its collaborative features, like simultaneous editing and in-line comments, enable teams to collaborate seamlessly on documentation, ensuring accuracy and incorporating diverse perspectives.
What You Will Like:
- Powerful linking capabilities allow you to create a web of interconnected pages, guiding users through related topics
- Ability to easily jump from a troubleshooting guide to a related FAQ or a more in-depth technical specification document
- Rich integration with Jira for flexibility in creating your own department space and managing the permissions
What You May Not Like:
- No option to keep the page in draft before publishing it
- When creating new documents, setting the location is not as smooth as you would like
Pricing:
Paid plan starts at $5.16/user/month.
5. Document360 – Best for Creating Online Documentation
Document360 offers a choice of three editors, including a powerful Markdown editor and an advanced WYSIWYG editor, catering to different preferences and skill levels. This ensures that creating and managing help content is a breeze for everyone on your team.
The platform’s robust analytics capabilities allow you to track key metrics, understand user behavior, and continuously improve your documentation based on real-world insights. It also enables efficient knowledge management with features like version control, allowing you to track changes, compare different versions of an article, and revert to previous iterations if needed.
What You Will Like:
- Category manager, which helps organize articles logically
- Bulk operations to streamline tasks like importing, exporting, and updating content
- Ability to create custom templates and layouts for articles
What You May Not Like:
- Analytics and integration features are available only in the top-tier plans
- Changes to the custom code don’t automatically save and require you to do it each time manually
Pricing:
Paid plan starts at $199/project/month.
How to Use a Help Documentation Template
A help documentation template provides a structured format that simplifies content creation by guiding writers on where to place essential information. Here’s how to use it:
Customizable documentation templates usually have a table of contents and a predefined structure to simplify the process.
You just need to add your company branding and color scheme, add more categories if you want, and fill it with helpful information, and you’re good to go.
What Are Some Examples of Help Documentation?
Creating comprehensive help documentation ensures that customers can fully utilize the features offered by the product. Let’s explore some examples to help you get started.
1. Manage Engine by Zoho
Manage Engine adopts a simple and structured approach, focusing on step-by-step instructions to guide users through discovery and configuration processes.
The help page documentation consists of concise sections, each dedicated to a specific aspect of the setup, including prerequisites, discovery of applications, and troubleshooting tips.
It uses bullet points for clarity, includes direct links to related topics for deeper exploration, and employs screenshots to aid the user’s understanding of the process visually.
2. RMS
RMS’s help documentation page prioritizes clarity and user experience. Its concise writing style, combined with a well-structured format and step-by-step guidance, makes troubleshooting easy for everyone.
Bullet points and internal links further enhance navigation and provide access to additional resources, ensuring users can quickly find solutions and resolve issues effectively.
3. CDS Convert
CDS Convert provides clear and concise guidance on exporting data from various platforms, including Skype and Facebook. The help page documentation features a user-friendly layout with sections covering supported formats, export guides for different platforms, FAQs, and helpful resources like articles and training videos.
Visual aids, like images and step-by-step instructions, simplify the export process and enhance user comprehension.
Enhance User Experience & Knowledge Retention with Help Documentation
Creating effective online help documentation is crucial for empowering your users, streamlining your support operations, and driving product success. Investing time and effort in crafting high-quality, user-friendly documentation can significantly enhance the user experience and foster customer satisfaction.
Remember to define your audience and purpose, plan and structure your content, choose the right tools, write clear and concise content, design for user experience, and maintain your documentation regularly.
ProProfs Knowledge Base can help you with this. Its intuitive user interface and AI-powered text editor make it ideal for building help documentation that empowers users and enhances their experience with your product or service. You may request a demo or explore the tool more below.
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