One of the most neglected aspects of the discussion of topic-based writing is that of provenance. Every technical document has provenance of some kind. It may be a highly structured and elaborate provenance, such as certification according to a standard performed by an outside agency, or it may be the implicit provenance of being published… Read More »
The first question we need to address in seeking a theory of topic-based information design is the perennial “how big is a topic”. Whether we are talking about the reusable blocks that DITA calls topics, or about Every Page is Page One topics that are sized for a reader, the question of size is always the first… Read More »
There is a lot of talk in tech comm today about topic-based writing, but very little about topic-based information design. This is a problem, because, in the age of the Web, and particularly of the mobile Web, topic-based information design is essential. Topic-based writing is often perceived (and practiced) as nothing more than writing in small,… Read More »
Continuing my reconsideration of concept, task, and reference as cardinal topic types, this post is about reference. I planned to call it “A Reference is Not a Table”, as I promised in The Tyranny of the Terrible Troika, but thinking more about it I realized that the issue is really much broader than that. The… Read More »
In The Tyranny of the Terrible Troika, I complained that the now almost universal trio of concept, task, and reference did not properly represent what topic-based writing and information typing are really about, and I promised to show why each one, as popularly practiced, fails as both a topic type and as an information type.… Read More »
Every documentation tool has a built in information design bias. When you choose a tool, be it FrameMaker, DITA, AuthorIt, a WIKI, or SPFE, you are implicitly choosing an approach to information design. If you don’t understand and accept the design implications of your tool choice, as many people do not, you are setting yourself… Read More »
Findability continues to be the bete noire of technical communication. This may be a parallax error, but it seems that findability is more of a problem in technical communication than in other fields. The reason, I suspect, is that many technical documentation suites are too big to browse but too small to search. I have… Read More »
I was astonished at Sarah Maddox’s statement, in her guest post Why don’t technical writers use wikis — or do they? on I’d Rather be Writing, that wikis are not good at topic-based writing. Huh? Wikis are all about topic-based writing. In fact, it is the only type of writing they really support. What’s wrong here?… Read More »
Everyone is wild about topics, and rightly so. Topic-based writing offers many benefits for both readers and writers. But not all topics are created equal, and how you serve your readers, and how efficient you make your writers, can depend on which approach to topic-based writing you choose. We can usefully distinguish three basic approaches,… Read More »
Could the way we organize content actually be causing readers to forget what they have read, or even why they were reading? In a post on the Technical Communication Professionals Email List, Mike Tulloch provides a link to a study from Notre Dame that suggest that walking through doors causes people to forget things (http://newsinfo.nd.edu/news/27476-walking-through-doorways-causes-forgetting-new-research-shows/).… Read More »