Technical writing services for online Help and onboarding

Have the Help and onboarding content written for you, simply and efficiently

Keep your customers happy with online Help that provides the right answer to their questions, every time.

Tell us what you'd like to happen

Cherryleaf helps you provide documentation that gets people using your product or service

Don’t worry if you don’t have the time or skills to write it in-house. Cherryleaf’s Technical Authors can write online Help, onboarding screens, embedded Help, UI text, or a knowledge base, for your product or service.

We’ll create these for you, simply and efficiently, and within an agreed schedule and budget. We have experience of working with companies both big and small. This means you’ll keep your software project schedule and costs on track.

Here are six typical Use Cases

  1. You’re releasing a new version of your product. The current documentation needs updating, but you just don’t have the time (or the technical communication skills) to do it.
  2. You’ve released your application, but its poor documentation means not enough people are using it, you’re getting too many Support calls, or it’s seen as worse than your competition’s products.
  3. Your product offerings are going to get a lot more complex. You know you’ll need great content to explain what the product does, how to get started, and how to use them effectively.
  4. You’re launching your first application, and you know you’ll need to provide a great user onboarding experience for you to succeed.
  5. There’s a lot of content, but it’s spread over explanations on Jira, readme files, files in a shared folder on Google Drive, PDFs originally developed for a single customer, web pages, wikis, video walkthroughs etc.
  6. Your developers are too close to the product to explain it fully in a way that a new user would understand.

Deliverables

Writing UX microcopy, UI text and Embedded Help

UX microcopy, UI text and Embedded Help places the Help information in the application screens. The user doesn’t need to leave the current screen to find the answer to their questions. We write the Help in text or Markdown format, which is then compiled with the application code files.

Writing online (web) Help pages and knowledge bases

We mean Help that’s delivered as a set of HTML files. These can be in a knowledge base, a Help section, or linked to your support ticket system. This type of Help is used for Software as a Service, other web-based applications, and mobile apps. It can also be used for desktop applications.

Developing onboarding screens and walkthroughs

Onboarding screens introduce the application to the user, and demonstrate what the product does. Cherryleaf can help you create your onboarding screens – getting the content and the design right for your product and your audience.

Creating compiled CHM Help

Compiled Help is used for Windows applications. The Help page files are compressed and deployed in a binary format single file.

We can also create print versions in PDF, Word, or another printed formats

Client testimonials

Cherryleaf did great work for us at Truphone. They came, they listened, they worked hard, they delivered.

Mark Heath, Truphone CTO Technical writing services

I had some basic instructions for my new online application, Opportunity Matrix™, but absolutely no idea how to turn them into a proper Help system.

The information and guidance from Cherryleaf was always top notch, so I always knew exactly where the project was, and what the (quite reasonable) budget needed to be. I shall have no hesitation in using Cherryleaf again, and in recommending them.

Andrew Horder, Opportunity Matrix CEO Technical writing services

I’m very pleased with the enhancements to the Help System. You created very clear topics for some areas that I find difficult to explain. You also identified a number of ‘bugs’ with the current version that have now been fixed. This just continues to improve the product.

Bruce McNaughton, CEO, ProcessAssets CEO Technical writing services

Online Help examples

Online Help portal example

Here is a proof of concept for an online Help portal that deflects calls to the support lines.

Knowledge base example

Here is a proof of concept for a knowledge base that deflects calls to the support lines.

Please note

Writing Help files is one of the key things that we do. However:

  • We are nearly always under a non-disclosure agreement with our clients.
  • The information is sometimes integrated with the software. This means you’d need to buy and install the application if you wanted to see the content. In other cases, the content may be on the web, but behind a firewall.

This means we prefer to understand a little more about your situation, so that we can show you the most appropriate examples. Contact us, and we can do this.

Free 11-point checklist for fixing online Help documentation problems

Get our free 11-point checklist to help you identity some of the common problems with online Help. With it, you’ll find some notes and explanations to help you answer each point on the list.

We’ll also send you links to a video and two of our most popular Help-related episodes from our podcast.

To get the checklist, enter your details into this form.

Have a preferred authoring tool or working method?

We can use a writing process that suits your workflow and technologies. Cherryleaf works with a wide range of authoring tools. We have close links with the leading Help tool vendors. For example: Adobe (makers of RoboHelp) and MadCap Software (makers of Flare). We also work with Markdown-based tools and Microsoft Word.

Contact us

Need someone to write your online Help or onboarding content?

Complete the contact form below. Don’t worry if you don’t know the answers to all of the questions.

We will contact you to discuss your situation and requirements.

You can always phone or email us, if you prefer.

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