Manuals are expensive to produce. If your company has several product
lines or even several models within a single line, the cost can add up
fast. Some companies take the one-size-fits-all approach and produce a
single generic manual to cover multiple models. You’ve seen them—they
always include a disclaimer: “models may vary” or something
similar. The result is never satisfactory. When the user tries to identify
a part in an illustration, it never looks like the part on his or her
product.
If you have just two or three minor variations on a product, a single
manual may work. You can give specific information for each, using a table
or section headings, and you can include illustrations for each. But what
if you have six or seven different variations? One option is to use a
modular organization. In this approach, you organize the manual by functional
units of information. For example, one unit might cover “lubricating
the rollers” or “initial set-up.” If different models
have different procedures, write each procedure as a separate unit, stored
electronically. It’s a simple matter then to assemble a manual for
a particular model—start with the boilerplate sections that apply
to all models, and plug the application-specific ones into the appropriate
“slots.” You keep your costs down and users get a manual that
works for their product.