Blueprints
Blueprints
Blueprints are original thinking models for technical documentation, written and maintained by Saina Veigel. Each blueprint is a plan drawn before anything is built: how technical writers structure complexity before the first sentence exists. They are authored works, published here as their reference version.
Every blueprint names its author, its edition and where its ideas were first published.
Blueprints · Edition 1
Thinking models for technical writers
How technical writers structure complexity before they write
Ten thinking models by Saina Veigel that help technical writers structure complexity before writing, with the mental model stack and an operating-mode grid.
10 thinking models: First principles thinking · Information Mapping · Component thinking · System thinking · Task thinking · Risk thinking · Variant thinking · Metadata thinking · Publication logic thinking · Clarity thinking
By Saina Veigel · First published
Open the blueprintBlueprints · Edition 1
Cognitive psychology for technical communication
The reader’s stack: how readers take in, understand and act on technical information
The reader’s stack by Saina Veigel: ten layers of how documentation works in the reader’s mind, with a use-situation grid and a crosswalk.
10 thinking models: Noticing · Finding · Orienting · Understanding · Modeling · Holding · Remembering · Deciding · Acting · Recovering
By Saina Veigel · First published
Open the blueprint