The previous section described strategies and methods that are appropriate for any nonfiction document. User Manuals are special documents that face problems specific to their genre. For our purposes, the user manual serves as the specification of the external appearance and behavior of the product. Therefore, it must be sufficiently detailed to define the eventual product, perhaps in more detail than some user manuals may otherwise require. It is permitted to move some portions of the User Manual into the Implementation Manual to be developed later, if appropriate.
Conflicting objectives face the writer of a user manual.
These objectives are inherently conflicting. Your Director must decide, along with the Client, whether the tutorial or reference objective will be emphasized. Your decision can be communicated to the reader in part through the Table of Contents. The organization of the document, even the chapter and section titles should be written for clarity. Fortunately, there are just a few typical outline types for user manuals.