Documentation tends to expand exponentially as companies continue to develop new products. At some point, many companies realize how important it is to consolidate, organize, structure and control their content. Too often, teams in companies work in silos, missing the opportunity to consolidate text across versions and between products. Effective and time-saving methods must be instituted to reuse content at the earliest possible opportunity.
Information Architects provide an invaluable service that enables companies to:
- Improve the UX (user experience) as customers user their products
- Save time and money by writing content once and reusing that same content in multiple places
- Save localization and translation cost
And best of all, once implemented, the savings simply continue to add up. Content reuse means saving time and money, every time you use that content. It means increased accuracy, because reused content means software updates and releases can happen more quickly and less (or nothing) is missed in the process.
Sounds great but you don’t know where to begin? An Information Architect will help you create the process for how you should best organize, label and structure your content to enable your users to search and find information quickly.
Not all technical writers are Information Architects. What sets true Information Architects apart is largely experience. WritePoint has helped hundreds of companies create and organize their documentation. We’ve worked with companies to move their legacy documentation into a cohesive, productive repository from which future documents can be generated easily.
We are happy to discuss your documentation needs and help you move your legacy documentation into today’s tools. Companies come to WritePoint because of our ties with many authoring tool vendors (Adobe, Madcap, 36Software, ClickHelp, Paligo and others). Our response is always the same – first let’s discuss your documentation needs and what documentation you have. The answer may be Adobe. It might be Madcap. It could well be Paligo, ClickHelp, or many other tools that are out there today.
But first, first discuss your expectations and desired deliverables. Your current documentation satus. Finally, once you pick the tool, how will you get from where you are today, to where you want to be? Do you need training? Consultation services? Conversion assistance?
If your content isn’t already in a content repository, we’d love to speak with you. WritePoint looks forward to helping you answer the questions we’ve asked! And more, we look forward to being THE answer to how!
