Information architecture

Information architecture determines what content you must put where in your database.

It is always better to plan your database before you start populating it, instead of making it up as you go.

Ask yourself questions like:

• What products do I need to document?
• How do the products differ from each other? How are they the same?
• Are the products part of one or more product lines?
• Are there optional features I have to document? How many?
• Are optional features known in advance?
• Are my manuals customer-specific? Order-specific? Standard for all customers?
• What information can I share across all products? Within a product line? What information is specific to a product?
• What legal disclaimers, copyright information, safety information, or other boilerplate text do I need?

This list is by no means exhaustive. Other questions you might want to answer:

• What images and illustrations do I need?

• In what format?

• Do I need different images for different outputs (think of size, resolution, palette)?

And also:

• What is the internal structure of my documents? Am I bound to a regulation or standard?

• What metadata do I want to use? Do I have to create an ontology? Did someone else create one already? .