Popular formats 

While every company (and creator) approaches quick start guides differently, there are a couple of formats you’ll see all over the place. One may strike you as a no-brainer over all others, depending on your needs and available resources. Or you may decide to mix and match a few to create the best experience. 

You can approach your QSG through:

• A dedicated section on your website. A tightly curated online hub of information can provide an interactive and engaging way for users to learn how to use a software application. This format may include videos, animations, or interactive quizzes to help users test their knowledge, and is one of the most popular ways for software-as-a-service companies to approach quick start guides.
• An in-app tutorial. An in-app tutorial can give people access to guidance and instructions while they are using the software application. This format may include pop-up messages and tooltips.
• An interactive demo. Who doesn’t appreciate the ability to take something for a test drive before downloading and/or purchasing? This format can be particularly useful for complex or technical software applications that may require more detailed guidance.
• A video series. If you have a videographer (or particularly outgoing/fearless person) on your team, short videos can be a great alternative to densely written documents. It’s common to see video-based QSGs broken down into “chapters” that are easier to digest and revisit. 
• A step-by-step how-to guide. An ideal option for all the people who like to learn by doing. Easy-to-follow tutorials provide step-by-step instructions for completing a specific task or achieving a particular goal. This format can include brief descriptions, annotated screenshots, links to related resources, and more.
• An infographic. An infographic can be a great way to depict key information about a software application (especially for visual learners!). This format can leverage graphics, icons, and text to succinctly communicate important steps or concepts.
• A PDF document. While it may not sound as cutting edge as the others in this list, a PDF document can be a useful format for a quick start guide, as it allows for easy distribution and printing. It can also include graphics and screenshots to help illustrate key instructions.

Quick start guide inspiration

To get your wheels spinning, here are five quick start guide examples.

Tango

For people with answers to FAQs:

Tango makes documentation easy, fast, and fun by automatically generating how-to guides with screenshots. 

When the inevitable “How do I…” question comes your way, Tango makes it simple to share your expertise, avoid hours of tedious documentation, and help everyone around you get stuff done—with fewer impromptu requests to screen share. 🙏

For people looking for answers to get unstuck:

Teaching people how to use a how-to tool *with* a how-to may be slightly meta, but it’s undeniably effective. 

After watching a quick demo and clicking the quick start guide link, new users learn how Tango works in-app, in the flow of their work, while viewing their first Tango. On-screen guidance makes it easy to know exactly what to do next—while saving mental energy and minimizing mistakes. 🕺

Try Tango for free

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Slack

It’s hard to imagine a world without Slack. When you need to help a new employee streamline communication and collaboration, there’s this treasure trove of information. 

Slack’s online quick start guide delivers on its promise. With instructions to download the desktop app, view a short video, and zip through a quick tour, it couldn’t be easier to set up your digital HQ.

Asana

Asana is a web-based project management software that allows teams to collaborate and manage their tasks and projects more efficiently. (If you haven’t tried it yet, it is nothing short of ✨.)

They also take an online approach to their quick start guide, with a structure that accelerates the process of finding what you’re looking for. Their guide uses text, video, and animations, and includes a high-level overview of how their program is organized alongside key things you can do.  

Salesforce

Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software that helps businesses manage their sales, marketing, customer service, and other business functions in one place. 

Since there’s a lot to learn, Salesforce has many, segment-specific quick start guides. This one's for small businesses who want to use Salesforce, and covers the basics, how to track customers and close deals, how to manage contacts, tips to resolve customer issues, and a glossary. There’s also a chatbot for real-time support, and a call to action to try the product out for free.

Wistia 

Wistia is a video marketing platform that makes it easy to find, engage, and grow your audience with video. 

You may not be surprised to learn that their demo video doubles as a quick start guide, with tips for hosting, marketing, analyzing, and creating video.

1. Talk to successful and unsuccessful customers.

We like personas as much as the next person. But to create a 🤩 quick start guide, there’s no substitute for talking to customers. It’s a good idea to connect with both inactive users (to suss out areas for improvement) and successfully onboarded users (to see what’s working). 

Issuing a survey works well for gathering quantitative data. You can ask questions like:

• What were you looking to accomplish with [your product] when you first signed up? 
• Were you able to achieve what you set out to do?
• Where did you run into roadblocks when getting set up with [your product]?
• What resources would you have liked to see as part of your onboarding process?
• Where could we have done a better job of showing vs. telling?
• How long did it take for you to start seeing value out of [your product]?
• On a scale of 1 to 5 (where 1 = not very important and 5 = essential), how important is having a tool like [your product] in your workflow? 

You can also dig into:

• Product data → To uncover key actions that correlate to quicker satisfaction 
• Support tickets → To proactively address any pain points felt by first timers 
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) results → To understand where you’re hitting a home run (and striking out)

To collect qualitative insights, you can take a 1:1 or 1:many approach. User research sessions can be particularly helpful—especially if you have people sign up to use your product and/or run through your quick start guide while they’re on a video call with you. Seeing where people get stuck IRL can be hugely illuminating—and open your eyes to missed expectations and opportunities. 

2. Confirm that perceived and experienced value are one and the same.

Is there a discrepancy between how you’re messaging your product (perceived value) and the value your users actually receive in the product (experienced value)? If yes, that’s a good signal your quick start guide isn’t quite hitting the mark.

3. Ask what will be most useful for users, not what will be easiest for you to make.

This one hits home, doesn’t it? 🎯 Creating a PDF probably wouldn’t require support from a videographer or an animator. Hosting a webinar probably wouldn’t require a web developer or too much time from your best graphic designer. But to truly take a customer-first approach to your onboarding documentation, you need to think about what would serve your user best.

Ultimately, you want your customers to find success—so understanding what success means to them and figuring out how your documentation helped (or hindered 😟) is key.

4. Keep users moving towards the “aha!” moment.

The average human attention span is 8.25 seconds. We officially have a shorter attention span than goldfish. This means it’s critical to keep your “quick” reference guide from being too comprehensive—and difficult to digest. 

If onboarding is a path towards value, you want that path to be as direct as possible, with no obstacles in the way. Your goal is to help your users reach the “aha!” moment—where they realize how useful your product is—ASAP. Every piece of content in your quick start guide should accelerate the movement towards that moment. If it doesn’t, cut it out ✂️.  

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5. Make a distinction between necessary and ongoing education.

The temptation to squeeze in ALL the cool things about your product is real. But to keep your quick start guide from morphing into a user manual—and to keep your end user top of mind—separate what’s necessary to know from what can be taught later on. It’s a good thing if the latter is a long list! That just means you have plenty of ways to add consistent value over time (which will help with retention). 

6. Assume a low level of understanding.

What percentage of non-technical people make up your audience? If it’s anything other than 0%, write as if your reader has no prior knowledge of or experience with your product. 

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7. Try not to name-drop features (too much).

Your engineering team likely puts lots of effort into shipping new solutions. And your product team likely puts lots of effort into naming them. It makes sense to want both teams to have their moment in the sun! But if you aren’t careful, your quick start guide may start to sound like an announcement of something awesome that you built—vs. an application that helps users understand how they can solve their problems. Focus on contextual application, or how your product can help to drive an outcome, rather than rattling off feature names.

8. Commit to keeping content current.

As anyone who creates documentation knows—maintenance is ongoing. And also: not the most fun. That said…your quick start guide will only be as useful as it is accurate. This is especially true when writing technical documentation since product updates can easily make your QSG obsolete. Work with your product, engineering, marketing, sales, and customer success teams to create a plan to update your guide whenever there are big updates to your product roadmap.

9. Be a guide, first and foremost.

When you pick a format for your quick start guide, think about the things that will help users feel the most supported through setup and beyond. Is that a chatbot on a website? A link out to a knowledge base from an infographic? Or a step-by-step tutorial with a literal “Guide Me” button?