Screenshots ClipboardHow to write a step-by-step guide with screenshots
A step-by-step guide works when each step is one action, starts with a verb and has one screenshot with the spot to click marked. Say what the reader will see after each step, and test the guide on someone who has never done the task.
By Manish Kalyan, who makes Screenshots Clipboard. .
What makes a step-by-step guide easy to follow?
Short steps that each do one thing, with a picture that shows the reader they’re in the right place.
- One action per step: “Click Export”, not “Go to Settings and export your data”.
- Start every step with a verb: Click, Type, Choose, Open.
- Name buttons exactly as the screen does.
- Say what happens next: “A banner says Saved.”
- Put a number on the spot to click, and use the same number in the text.
How should I take the screenshots?
Capture each screen once it’s set up, not halfway through a change. Crop to the area around the click but keep one landmark, like the menu bar, so the reader knows where they are.
- Use one window size for every shot, so the pictures line up.
- Use sample data, never a real customer’s name or account.
- Capture the end result too, so the reader knows when they’re done.
How long should a guide be?
As long as the task, and no longer. Past about ten steps, split it into two guides with clear names.
What should I write a guide about first?
The question you answer most often. How to export last month’s invoices for a client, how to request time off in your HR app, or how to pay a bill with UPI, step by step, for your parents.
How do I test a guide?
Give it to someone who has never done the task and watch without helping. Every place they stop is a step to rewrite.
Where Screenshots Clipboard helps
Screenshots Clipboard is a Chrome extension that turns the shots you pick into a guide: press Make guide, and each shot becomes an A4 or Letter page with a step title and a line to type in, saved as a PDF. The How-to guide is free up to 5 pages; Plus adds SOP, Training and six more templates for $2.99 a month or $19 a year.
Questions
Should a guide be a PDF or a doc?
A PDF when it goes outside your team or gets printed, because it looks the same everywhere. A doc when your team will keep editing it.
Does every step need a screenshot?
Every step where the reader has to find something on the screen does. A step like “Wait for the email” doesn’t.
Over to you
Which task do people ask you to explain again and again?
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