Document Architecture—What Is It?

Consider what documents your company or professional practice produces, and for whom.

Do you know:

• What information you publish?
• How do you publish it?

For instance, do you provide any of these to your clients, customers, investors:

• Brochures
• Proposals
• “Quick-Start” instructions
• User or administration guides
• Product demonstrations
• Investment prospectus
• Annual reports

Publishing Information

How do you publish your documents? Do you offer them on your Web site? On your company intranet? Do you e-mail information about your products and services? Do you print brochures or user guides?

There’s an architecture to information publishing. Sometimes, it’s as simple as typing the information into an electronic file using a word processing application and printing it on site. You may produce electronic files and deliver them to a printer on disc or by File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Regardless of how you publish it, your information must be received in formats compatible with the publication method. The complexity of publication depends upon the type of data, how it’s produced, and how often you publish it.

Create a thoughtful, ordered structure for publishing your information.

Keep Your Information Fresh

Do you include the same information in different documents? Pieces, or elements, of data about a particular product or service may appear in different publications. Some publications may contain more technically complex, or descriptive, information about such a product or service than another. When you modify that information, do you have a problem updating it wherever and however you publish it?

Design Your Infrastructure

Even if you haven’t considered it, you have an infrastructure that supports the publication of your information. You're in business; you take an ordered, thoughtful approach to your products and services in order to minimize costs and earn maximum profit from them. Apply this approach to your documentation!

Whether you let me work with you on this, it’s important to create a thoughtful, pragmatic publication architecture. The architecture must allow you to publish your information effectively. Your architecture must help you convert your documentation from an overhead expense to a revenue-producing venture.