Content concepts for technical documentation

Documentation must provide instructions on the complete and safe use of a product. This however does not yet express which information is to be conveyed with instructions. The necessary contents significantly depend on which function the instructions fulfill and to whom it is directed. The operating instructions for the end user necessitates different contents than the service instructions for in-house technicians.

A contents concept must not only determine which information is to be conveyed, but also how it occurs. From the user's point of view, it is a matter of being able to access information as directly as possible. From the editor's point of view, it is about efficient preparation and reutilization of universally valid information among the instructions.


Our procedure:

• We familiarize ourselves with your products, their applications and the target groups.
• We develop a structural contents concept on various levels – documents, chapter, sections.
• We define a contents concept on the communicative level – instructions, descriptions, warnings and text-picture coordination.
• We define phrasing and layout specifications.
• We indentify information that can be used multiple times, e.g. warnings, introduction to the documentation, addresses and explanatory graphics.
• We prepare exemplary sample pages.
• We illustrate the rules and decisions in guidelines and editorial tools

Advantages for you:

• Individual adaptation of your documentation to your products, target groups and additional requirements
• Basis for the cross-document reutilization of information
• Waste-free conveyance of information; the documentation only contains exactly what the respective target group needs for its role
• The basis for an industrial, system-supported compilation of documentation from information modules