Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation

What is a User Guide? 
Major defines a user guide as…
a summary of all related resources […] written for everyone who might 
use these resources. It serves as a system of pointers to more detailed in-
formation, such as references manuals, tutorials, and standard operating 
procedures. (Major 1985:122) 
At first glance, one would be forgiven for thinking that a user guide was lit-
tle more than a directory or compendium of existing documentation or 
some form of super product encyclopaedia. However, Major clarifies this 
when discussing documentation policy within a particular company. With 
an abundance of tutorials, how-to documents etc. a user guide was created 
in order to organise and arrange the existing documents. So rather than be-
ing a mere directory, Major explains that the user guide actually consists of 
many of these resources while providing references to others. He goes on 
to say that a user guide is a resource which not only points to all available 
documentation but also guides the reader through a general background 
and lays the foundations upon which “assumptions can be made about the 
level of comprehension readers have when they reach a given point in the 
total documentation picture” (
ibid.
). 
Weiss (1985:4) provides a simpler definition of a user guide (or manual 
to use Weiss’ terminology): “a user manual is – or should be – a tool that 
helps its readers get full benefit from the system.” The guide, he maintains, 
is intended to compensate for the fact that software and information tech-
nology are often difficult and unfriendly to the user. This is also true by vir-
tue of the fact that there is a limit to what can be learned autonomously and 
intuitively without assistance. Weiss continues to say
…users may become interested in the inner workings of computer tech-
nology.
But this does not alter the
basic idea: Users are people who 
want something bigger than, and outside of the particular device (
ibid.) 
It is clear from the preceding definition that users use software as a means to 
an end – a tool to help them do something else. 
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Technical Communication