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Why use Armada to write your online help and user guides?

We often get asked this question by potential new customers. It's one we enjoy answering because in doing so we can get to the heart of our technical authoring standards, values and our company ideology.

In answering the question we do, in fact, answer three questions:

		Why use Armada rather than recruit a permanent technical author?
		Why use Armada rather than a contract technical author?
		Why use Armada rather than a different company?

Let's answer each of these in turn...

Why use Armada rather than recruit a permanent technical author?

To answer the first question, let us be honest and say it may be better for some organisations to employ their own technical author instead of using an external resource. However, for this to be the case, various criteria must be satisfied:

		You must have a steady flow of software development, enough to sustain a technical author for twelve months of the year but without overburdening them at peak times. Most software companies do not have this regular flow. It is much more likely that you have significant peaks and troughs in your software output, and so employing one person all year to write online help and user guides is not practicable.
		You must be experienced in recruiting and managing a technical author. If not, you'd better be prepared for a hard time in finding the right person who you can trust to produce top quality help and manuals. It's not easy. Many is the occasion that Armada has been asked to help a company because their attempt at recruiting their own technical writer ended up in either not being able to find someone suitable or the person they recruited wasn't good enough or left at an inconvenient time. And, even if you find and recruit someone acceptable, there are usually significant management costs, software and hardware costs, and so on.

If, on balance, you decide that taking on your own employee is the right way forward for you, then it's worth remembering that one of the services we offer is that of technical writer recruitment. Because of our experience we can help reduce your risk and effort. Click here for more information.

Why use Armada rather than a contract technical author?

If you decide that you want to out-source the technical writing, then you have a straightforward choice: a single contractor or a service company. The benefits of using a company like Armada to write your online help and hard copy guides are many and significant:

		Improved quality. This is certainly true of Armada, because the majority of our work comes from follow-up projects or recommendations. If we don't do a good job each time, and keep our customers happy, most of our income would simply disappear. Conversely, most contracting technical writers can move from company to company, year after year, without the quality of their work having much impact on their employability. It's often only three to six months after the manual or help is finished that you get any indication from end-users whether it's any good.
		Future work and continuation. Returning to the same company for follow-up work has the dual advantage of reducing any learning curve, because they've produced documentation for you already, and familiarity with working practises. Contract authors cannot guarantee their future availability whereas we can.
		Assurance of the latest technology and standards. Most software companies want their online help or hard-copy guides to be modern and fresh in appearance. Armada makes sure it keeps up-to-date with the latest help standards (whether it's HTML, DHTML, XML, JavaScript, PDFs, Webhelp, or whatever's next) whereas it's obviously harder and relatively more costly for an individual technical writer to do so.
		Comprehensive service. It's much harder for an individual to offer the extent of services that a company like ours can offer: printing, demo systems, translation, training, and more.
		Cost. You're probably thinking that this sounds all well and good, but what about the cost? Surely the cost of appointing a company would be prohibitively expensive. This is not the case. Our rates are comparable with those of a senior-level contract technical author.

Why use Armada rather than a different company?

The simple answer is it's a matter of affordable quality. Our rates are very competitive but that does not prevent us from writing the best quality documentation. In fact, it goes to the very heart of our business philosophy that we never produce poor documentation. Not ever.

That being said, we certainly don't have a 'one size fits all' approach that is common in this industry. We've been producing technical documentation at Armada for well over a decade, and before that individually at different companies, and our experience has meant that we can adapt the style and depth of the help and manuals we write to suit your needs and budget. We know that each of our customers has requirements and working practices that are unique to them.

Our experience isn't in just one field either, it's right across the software development spectrum, in the UK and abroad, for all organisations of all sizes from small businesses to global, household names. Have a look at our expertise for an indication of the industries we've been involved with. What's more, we've produced technical documentation in just about all formats, including Webhelp, HTML Help, WinHelp, Acrobat PDFs as well as hard copy. The types of hard copy documentation we've produced includes user guides, reference manuals, training guides and quick reference guides.

We have developed a close team of skilled and experienced technical authors so that knowledge of each of our customers and writing standards is inherently shared between us. All of our work is proofread by another member of the team - usually one of Armada's directors - before you receive it. We never assign a technical author to a project and just let them do it entirely on their own, like some technical writing companies do. If we did, then we feel you might as well just recruit a contractor.

Before we do any work on any project, we have a full discussion with you to make sure that we are all in agreement with the scope and standards involved. As a rule we also produce a sample of the finished documentation as early as possible in the project - as a 'peace of mind' regarding the direction the project's heading - and then have regular contact throughout the project to make sure that the project is running smoothly.

The bottom line is that because over 80% of our technical writing revenue is directly down to follow-up projects or recommendations, we have to keep our customers satisfied. You know and we know that poor documentation reflects badly on you, costs you more in terms of support or customer dissatisfaction. That's why we always deliver help and manuals of the highest quality.

Click here to get an estimate for a project you are considering.