Tips To Make An Instructional Booklet
All major products that are purchased these days come with instructional booklet. While brochures and catalogs help in selling a product, instructional booklets helps an user to understand it’s working. Instructional booklets are thus very important part of a product sale. Here are few tips that you should keep in mind while designing an instructional booklet:
Logical Flow: A good instructional booklet should have a logical flow. As a designer your focus should be on the composition of the booklet. The flow should be logical where one step leads to the other. The overall outline should also bear the same flow. In an instructional booklet of an electronic equipment the Installation page should be put first followed by Setup and Troubleshooting.
Be Precise: You need to be to the point in a perfect instructional booklet. The language has to be simple as in it needs to address the common people. A reader should at one go understand what you meant. Avoid writing long sentences as they confuse a readers instead of offering any assistance.
Index The Book: If your instructional booklet has many sections and sub-sections it should have an index. Make sure all the sections and sub sections are listed under the index which will make it easier for the users to find the solution they are looking for from the book.
Sections Are The Key: The booklet should be divided well into sections as it makes reading easy. Avoid jumbling up different sections in the single page. Do not cut any section just to avoid going to the next page.
Use Illustrations: They are the most important part of any booklet. A single illustration is worth many lines of text and thus it relieves you from the pain of narrating every step textually. In most cases, people understand things better when they see how it works rather than if they read about it. In steps which are difficult use, you should use multiple illustration to make it easier.
Troubleshooting: Your instructional booklet should have a page on troubleshooting if the product is electronic in nature. Many people take time to adjust to a new equipment and troubleshooting page helps them in solving their problems.
A well designed instructional booklet should only be printed by a professional printer. Make sure to check the ratings and get some samples before placing the order. if you have the option of hard copy proofing then choose that option when placing the order.