Glossary
Technical documentation and information design glossary
Definitions of the terms behind the models of technical documentation described in the encyclopedia — topic-based and task-based documentation, Every Page is Page One, semantic documentation, minimalism and structured authoring — and of the concepts they rest on: topics and information types, task analysis, semantic markup, content models, controlled language and the structured formats used to implement them — and the cognitive and analysis tools documentation shares with other professions, such as the mental model of a user and the five whys. Philosophy, reasoning methods and mental models as thinking tools have a glossary pool of their own, The art of thinking.
2 · Topics and information design
Information foraging
In technical communication and human-computer interaction, information foraging is a theory that explains information seeking as behavior shaped by the value of the information sought and the effort needed to get it. Developed by Peter Pirolli and Stuart K. Card at Xerox PARC and published in Psychological Review in 1999, it borrows concepts from optimal foraging theory in ecology: readers move between information "patches", follow "information scent" given off by proximal cues such as link labels, headings, titles and metadata, and abandon a patch when the expected yield drops below what another patch promises. The theory is descriptive, not a standard or a method, and it predicts behavior rather than prescribing document structure. In documentation practice it is used as a rationale for making individual pages self-sufficient and for strengthening the cues by which readers judge, enter and leave a page.
Information foraging · Information scent · Findability · Every Page is Page One · Reading behavior
Definition and examplesInformation Mapping
German: Information Mapping
In technical communication, Information Mapping is a structured writing method that analyzes subject matter into small labeled units, classifies each unit by the reader question it answers, and presents the result in a standardized visual format. Its core building blocks are the information block (a labeled unit covering one idea) and the information map (a set of related blocks under a heading), with each block assigned an information type such as procedure, process, concept, principle, fact or structure. The method is applied in three steps — analyze, organize, present — guided by writing principles such as chunking, relevance, labeling and consistency. Information Mapping is also a registered trademark of Information Mapping, Inc., which offers training, certification and authoring software for the method.
structured writing · information types · chunking · modular content · technical communication
Definition and examplesTopic (technical communication)
German: Topic
In technical communication, a topic is a self-contained unit of content that covers a single subject and serves a single purpose, written so that it makes sense without the content that precedes or follows it. Topics are the units that authors write, review, approve, translate, reuse, and assemble into deliverables such as manuals, help systems, and content delivery portals. The general concept is not fixed by a single standard: structured formats such as DITA and iiRDS each define their own topic constructs, and in-house information models define topic types of their own. What the implementations share is the pairing of one title with one subject and one communicative purpose.
topic · topic-based authoring · structured authoring · information design · content reuse
Definition and examples
Cognition and analysis methods
Mental model
German: mentales Modell
In cognitive science and usability, a mental model is an internal representation of how something works — a system, a situation or a relationship — that a person uses to understand, predict and decide, for example a user's belief about how a machine or software behaves.
Cognitive science · Technical documentation
Definition and examplesFive whys
German: 5-Why-Methode
In quality management, the five whys is a questioning technique that asks “why?” repeatedly — typically about five times — to trace a problem from its symptom to an underlying cause; it was developed at Toyota and described by Taiichi Ohno as part of the Toyota Production System.
Thinking models · Problem solving · Engineering
Definition and examples
1 · Documentation models
Every page is page one
In technical communication, Every Page is Page One (EPPO) is a model for topic-based writing, set out by Mark Baker in the book of the same name (XML Press, 2013), in which every topic is designed to work as a reader's first page. It assumes that readers arrive from search, links, or in-product help rather than from a table of contents, so each topic has to carry its own context and purpose instead of relying on a preceding chapter. Baker describes seven characteristics of an EPPO topic: it is self-contained, has a specific and limited purpose, conforms to a type, establishes its context, assumes the reader is qualified, stays on one level, and links richly. EPPO is an authoring and information-architecture model, not a markup standard or a conformance scheme.
documentation models · topic-based authoring · information architecture · findability · technical communication
Definition and examplesStructured authoring
German: strukturiertes Schreiben
In technical communication, structured authoring is a way of writing in which content is created as discrete information units that follow a formally defined content model — a schema, document type definition, or specification — rather than as free-form pages shaped by a word processor. Meaning is marked up explicitly (a warning is tagged as a warning, a step as a step), while typography, pagination, and layout are applied later by a publishing process. Because the markup is validated against the model, the same source can be checked automatically, reused across deliverables, and rendered to print, HTML, or machine-readable formats. Structured authoring is one of the six documentation models described in the encyclopedia subject area Technical documentation models and is usually combined with the others rather than used alone.
structured authoring · content model · XML · single-sourcing · documentation models
Definition and examples- Working term
Technical documentation model
In technical communication, a technical documentation model is a set of principles for dividing, organizing and expressing technical content so that readers can find and use it. A model answers questions such as how large a unit of content should be, what each unit is about, how units connect, how content is marked up and how much prose a reader needs. The term is an umbrella label rather than a standardized one: no standard defines "technical documentation model", and the individual models come from technical communication literature and from publishing practice. Models are design principles, not deliverables, and they say nothing by themselves about whether a documentation set meets a legal or contractual requirement.
technical documentation · documentation models · information design · structured authoring · topic-based
Definition and examples
Definitions follow the cited standards and specifications. Where a source is a copyrighted publication, such as an ISO, IEC or EN standard, the definition is a close paraphrase, not a verbatim quotation, so as not to infringe copyright. We recommend reading the original publication. The sections “How it applies” are editorial commentary by AI TechDoc Blog and are not part of any standard.