Struggling to create clear, engaging guides that help your team complete tasks efficiently? This blog will show you how to design step-by-step infographic guides to simplify workflows, projects, and training processes.
Want to learn by doing it first hand? Get started with Venngage’s Infographic Maker or choose from a wide variety of step-by-step guide templates to bring your ideas to life.
Click to jump ahead:
- What is a step by step guide?
- How do you prepare a step-by-step guide?
- What should a “how to” guide include?
- How do you create a guide template?
What is a step by step guide?
A step-by-step guide (also called a step-by-step instruction guide) outlines the steps required to complete a particular task. Here’s a simple example:
If you’ve ever assembled a piece of furniture — say, from a store that also sells meatballs — you’ve encountered a step-by-step guide. While not every guide you’ll create for your team is as detailed as a set of Ikea instructions, their function is exactly the same: Ensuring that a task is done correctly.
In a workplace context, you can use step-by-step guides to train new employees on a new piece of software or an update to standard operating procedures, and they are a wise addition to an onboarding packet for a new hire. Besides providing detailed instructions for tasks, how-to guides can also help people troubleshoot technical problems or explain the ins and outs of creating a business plan.
This step-by-step guide, for example, explains to hospitality workers how travelers book their vacation packages.
Why use a step-by-step guide for your business?
Breaking down a complex process into its small chunks helps the intended audience process the information quickly and easily. Think about putting together a puzzle; you see the image on the box and all the pieces inside and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But going step by step, eventually, the task is done.
For example, take a look at this effective how-to guide:
This step-by-step job aid helps break down a daunting task — dealing with negative reviews — into something any new employee will feel is much more manageable. This is a perfect template for processes that involve lots of moving parts.
Documenting processes into step-by-step instructions also guarantees a smoother transition of knowledge among team members — especially for new employees. Creating step-by-step guides for your employees also helps your organize your content in an easy-to-follow visual format and contributes to the company’s internal knowledge base.
Creating visual content for training purposes is a great idea — and we’ve got first-hand research data to back it up.
How do you prepare a step-by-step guide?
To prepare a step-by-step guide, outline the process clearly, break it into detailed steps, and present them in a logical order for easy understanding.
Here’s a simple breakdown of the steps you need to take to create a how-to guide:
- Step 1: Name the process or task.
- Step 2: Identify the individuals or teams responsible for carrying out the process.
- Step 3: Define the steps involved in completing the process successfully.
- Step 4: Document the steps with all the details required. Think of your intended audience when you write down the steps — make sure you use language that they can relate to. Also consider using visuals here — popular options include flow charts, checklists and standard operating procedures, among others.
- Step 5: Determine if or when it’s ever appropriate to deviate from the process, and, if so, describe scenarios where this might occur.
- Step 6: Put the process into practice and monitor its success or failure. Consider what steps can be taken to improve it and implement them, again reviewing for success.
Once you’ve got the steps listed out and they are complete (and in the right order), use a template or create a design from scratch. Try to think of things from the perspective of someone who hasn’t done this task before. Ask questions like:
- Does the step-by-step guide has everything a new person needs to get started?
- Is the guide detailed enough for the person to complete the intended task?
As an example, here’s a step-by-step guide to affiliate marketing for people who don’t know how or where to begin:
It’s important to keep details of each step as brief as possible — unless you’re writing an entire book around the process. And as with any training or development program that you run for your employees, try to get people’s feedback.
Gauge how useful they find the step-by-step guide or if you can improve it further for future use. If the step-wise guide to affiliate marketing wasn’t clear enough, for instance, you can reformat it differently using a different template. Here’s how it might look:
What should a “how to” guide include?
To create an effective “how-to” guide, start by outlining the goal, breaking the process into clear, actionable steps, and organizing them in a logical order. Including visuals, examples, and tips can make the guide more helpful and easier to follow.
Here’s what a “how to” guide or step-by-step guide should include:
- Name of task or job. This could be something specific (e.g. how to download Venngage WordPress plugig for free) or it could be broad (e.g. how to make an infographic).
- Number of steps
- Explanation of what happens in each step
But your how-to guide can include much more than just the basics. With Venngage for Business, for instance, there are several other ways you can bring your ideas to life.
Here’s an example. The step-by-step guide template below uses screenshots to illustrate what the user is supposed to be do at various stages:
When people can visualize each step and understand what it looks like, they are more likely to follow every step accurately. Another important decision to make is whether your guide will need to be printed and, if so, how it will come to life. Consider these questions:
- Will you print it on your office printers, or will you send it off to a print shop?
- Can you print in a large format or does it need to be letter- or A4-sized?
If you’re going to print it in-house, it’s a good idea to use a design with shades of gray, as that’ll save on ink, and you should think about what paper is available to you.
Use this step-by-step job aid template to get started on a simple five-step process guide that you can print out on a standard office printer. Simply update the icons and text and you’ll be off to the races.
This process infographic is an ideal if you need to print it on a standard consumer printer because it uses a shades of gray.
How do you create a guide template?
If you are a Business plan subscriber, you can share your step-by-step guide template with your team members and collaborate with them in real time:
But if you’re not creating how-to guides on Venngage, here are some ways to convert your step-by-step guide into a reusable template.
Once you’ve completed designing a guide, make a copy of it. Next, replace the actual content with placeholder text. Here’s a good lorem ipsum generator so you don’t have to worry about outdated or inappropriate content finding its way into future guides.
Next, use this step-by-step infographic. Replace the headers, icons and text so that you can quickly add the steps of any new process and cut down on the amount of time needed to create your new step-by-step guide.
You can leave the old images in place to remember where the artwork went in the original design. This is helpful if you want my new guide to be consistent with the old one. You can always switch things up if you change or add new design elements to it.
If I were turning the step-by-step process infographic show below into a guide template, for example, I’d first replace the text with placeholder text. But I’d eave the images in place to remind me of what worked (or didn’t) last time around.
Ensure your team is well-trained by providing step-by-step guides to simplify complex concepts
Whether you’re building out an onboarding packet, describing a new process or getting your arms around a major project, step-by-step guides are incredibly useful. The good news is, they’re super-easy to create with Venngage. It’s free to try!
