What's Document Architecture?

Consider what documents your company or professional practice produces, and for whom. For instance, do you provide any of these to your clients, customers, investors?

Brochures
How-to 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 across the Internet? 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 publishing information. Sometimes it's as simple as typing the information into an electronic file using a word processing application and then printing it on your deskjet or laser printer. You may produce electronic files, copy them onto a disc, and deliver that disc to a printer. Your printer may receive files electronically. Regardless of how you publish your information, that data must be received in formats compatible with the method of publication. The complexity of publication depends upon the type of data, how it's produced, and how often you publish it.

Keeping 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 publication 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!

We can help you engineer this infrastructure. Why? Good technical writers—and we're good technical communicators—are good at system analysis and information design. We know the tools that are available and we know the best practices used in our field. We won't give you a "pie-in-the-sky" white paper recommending solutions far beyond your needs and capabilities. Instead, we work with you to establish an infrastructure that serves you, not us.

Whether you let us work with you on this, it's important for you to create a thoughtful, pragmatic publishing architecture that allows you to publish your information effectively; one that converts your documentation efforts from an overhead expense to a revenue-producing venture.

For more about this, check out our notes about information architecture.