Introduction
Quick reference guides offer concise, step-by-step instructions to fast-track onboarding new employees. They use annotated screenshots and simple layouts to visually guide readers through what they need to know — without lengthy text descriptions.
Despite their simplicity, writing quick reference guides is quite challenging. Striking the right balance between concise instructions and helpful content requires careful consideration. This article will help you make a helpful quick start guide.
What’s a Quick Reference Guide?
A quick reference guide is a simple, concise document summarizing something readers need to know. It often provides step-by-step instructions for starting a task or troubleshooting common issues. With this resource, readers can get answers quickly, so they don’t need to reference lengthy software documentation or user guides.
The best quick reference guides include user-friendly visuals, screenshots and straightforward text that efficiently describe the intended experience. These handy graphics are accessible because they provide simple instructions without relying on long descriptions, avoiding potential issues with language barriers. And if your employees are new to a platform, visuals make complex systems easier to understand.
Quick Reference Guide Benefits
A collection of quick reference guides can significantly improve your onboarding process. These resources highlight critical instructions new employees will need to reference often. When workers have these quick guides available, your training program will improve in the following ways.
Boosted Efficiency
New employees must complete several tasks throughout onboarding, which can get overwhelming. For instance, they need to customize their work accounts, learn how to use company tools and download all the necessary software. Quick reference guides give people all the essential instructions to handle these simple tasks without contacting their trainers, which saves everyone time.
Increased Information Retention
Quick start guides typically distill high-level information into short, snappy resources. Breaking tasks into smaller steps allows employees to easily complete and memorize processes. Further, quick documents are also great references for experienced employees, particularly for tasks they haven’t done in a while.
Faster Troubleshooting
Quick reference guides provide a business’s new employees with handy cheat sheets they can pull out whenever they have an issue during onboarding. This often happens when a tool isn’t functioning as it should or they discover they lack access to an important folder. Create quick reference guides for all the common issues you expect them to encounter so they’ll have them when the time comes.
Best Practices for Quick Reference Guide Designs
Here are a few best practices that can help you create user-friendly guides that optimize readability.
Focus on Simplicity
Write out all the instructions as if describing them to someone in person. That conversational tone is essential — it makes your writing more accessible with shorter sentences and straightforward language. Then, review what you’ve written to remove complex words that might confuse readers.
If you’re recording a process with Scribe, you won’t have to worry about jargon creeping into your document, as our platform automatically uses simple terms.
Use Visuals
Include screenshots and diagrams that convey instructions at a glance. You can also use them for organizational structures or architectural layouts to illustrate how several small parts make up a whole. Be sure to use contrasting colors in your graphics to ensure they’re accessible for visually impaired and colorblind readers.
Follow a Template
Quick reference guides are more useful if they follow a consistent structure. When readers get accustomed to that style, they can more quickly understand each new guide they open.
So, use a template as the starting point for each new guide to ensure the formatting looks the same. And because templates have clear headings for all the sections your guide may need, sticking with one will prevent you from missing important information.
How To Make a Quick Reference Guide: 6 Steps
Here’s a six-step process you can follow to write a concise reference guide for any task.
1. Choose a Quick Reference Guide Template
Choose a template that provides all the formatting, fonts and layout you need to get started. It’s best to select one that will work for every guide you create, as this consistency helps employees better understand each set of instructions.
One of the best options is this quick reference guide template from the Scribe Gallery. It’s perfect for training because it offers ample space for screenshots, text and examples in a clean layout optimized for readability and functionality.
2. Select the Essential Steps
Walk through the process you’ll document and identify all the essential steps that make it work. Note them simply to create a basic outline — you’ll fill this in next.
For example, a quick reference guide for setting up a time management tool might require the following main tasks:
- Download the software.
- Sign in with your work email.
- Join the work group.
- Customize your profile.
3. Provide a Brief and Clear Explanation
Now, fill in each section with the step-by-step instructions for completing a task. When necessary, include links to additional documentation, such as compliance documents, user manuals or troubleshooting guides.
4. Add Screenshots and Visuals
Walk through the process you’re documenting again to capture screenshots that users can reference as they follow the guide. Annotate them with captions and alt text to ensure they’re useful for visually impaired readers. If other types of graphics would be a better fit, like flowcharts or diagrams, add those instead. Ideally, every step should have an associated visual.
5. Condense
Review your instructions to remove jargon and simplify the text. If possible, every step should be a single sentence long and have a helpful visual accompanying it. Likely, you can remove steps that aren’t significant enough to have a graphic.
6. Test It
Ask a peer unfamiliar with the process in your guide to test it. They can point out what they found confusing and share suggestions on how to fix it. After addressing this feedback, ask another peer to test it. Continue this process until no one reports any issues with your guide. Before publishing, create clear feedback channels so new employees can share their opinions on the resource.
Tools To Make a Quick Reference Guide
While drafting quick reference guides can be a challenge, automation software makes it easier. Here are a few programs to try.
Scribe
Scribe is an AI-powered documentation generator that’s perfect for creating quick reference guides. Our browser plugin and desktop app capture any process you complete on your screen.
With Scribe, you simply walk through whatever task you want to document, and it'll automatically generate instructions, take annotated screenshots and format them into an actionable guide.
Once you’re done, use Scribe Pages to create a comprehensive knowledge base containing all your references. Share this resource with your team through links, or embed it into an employee handbook for easy access.
Document 360
Document360 is a knowledge-base tool that puts all your documentation, manuals and quick reference guides into one platform. It won’t generate the pages for you, but it’s a text editor and publishing platform you can use to write and share your guides. Development teams and technical writers who need various formatting options for code examples and dynamic content may find it useful.
Nuclino
Nuclino is a knowledge-base solution that lets you write and publish content like quick start guides, user manuals and setup instructions. Thanks to their format and layout, Nuclino pages have minimal load times. The platform also has a simple search functionality to help users navigate.
A Quick Start Tool for Quick Start Guides
Writing quick reference guides ensures new employees experience a smooth learning curve as they break into their new roles. These resources supplement all the other employee reference materials, like user manuals, Google Sheets and setup guides. Writing and editing quick reference guides often requires a lot of time and manual effort, but Scribe will quickly generate and customize content for all your training needs.
Our free Quick Reference Guide Generator builds resources for any processes you want to document. Try it out to see what it can do for your business, and explore the Scribe Gallery to find a wide variety of templates.
