Note: Go to the last slide for a video of the same talk at Write the Docs Europe 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kg-6YCDg64).
An everyday dilemma in technical communication: What do you call that “thing”? Whether you ask developers, marketing folks or users, you often get very different views.
Along with user interfaces, documentation helps all stakeholders align their mental model of a product. Terminology plays a key role, and a controlled vocabulary is an ace up the technical writer’s sleeve.
Controlled vocabularies are basically lists of concepts and the relationships between them. Beyond consistent naming, they are about structuring, categorizing and retrieving content. For example, you can use a vocabulary as a basis for documentation plans, tables of content, a help site’s navigation, search filters, or even to organize test cases.
In this talk, I will share ways to create and maintain various types of vocabularies, and explain what each type is useful for. You can start with a flat list of terms and expand it into a glossary, a thesaurus, a taxonomy, or even a full-fledged ontology.
17. LABELS – WHAT FOR
● Heterogeneous content
● Precision
● Disambiguation
18. LABELS – HOW TO
● Tools: Paper cards, text editor, spreadsheet, …
● Sources:
– User interface analysis
– Lists of features (user stories, specifications, test cases, architecture
diagram,…)
– Site search analytics and tags
– Content analysis
– Existing vocabularies (glossaries, industry standards, competitors,
…)
● Tip: Consistent grammar and spelling!
25. GLOSSARY – WHAT FOR
● Consistency
● Reference
● Embedded help
26. GLOSSARY – HOW TO
● Tools: Text editor, spreadsheet, wiki, …
● Sources:
– Existing documentation (concept topics), training materials,
marketing materials, specifications
– Interviews with subject-matter experts
– ev. Screenshots
● Tip: Make it easy to reach!
42. FULL THESAURUS – WHAT FOR
● Finding topics (hierarchy)
● Related topics (serendipity)
● Overview of topics
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46. FULL THESAURUS – HOW TO
● Tools: Spreadsheet (no polyhierarchy), subject cards
(database or thesaurus management software), SKOS (W3C
standard)
● Sources:
– Card sorting exercise with users
– Hierarchy: Generic-specific, whole-part, class-instance (top-
down / bottom-up)
● Tips:
– Polyhierarchies (> 1 broader term) difficult to represent in a
navigation
– Use standards to guarantee compatibility across tools
52. TAXONOMY – WHAT FOR
● Refine results of search or browsing
(facets)
● Display related content (“See also...”)
● Increase set of results (search engine)
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57. TAXONOMY – HOW TO
● Tools: Database, specialized taxonomy management
tool, spreadsheet (1 sheet/facet)
● Content analysis:
– What are the kind of properties shared by a lot of the
content? ( facets)→
– For each property, what are its sub-classes or instances?
● Tip: Get help from a data modelling expert