Applying "mass customisation" manufacturing principles to solve technical communication problems
1 February, 2005 By Yves Rombauts,Trisoft. Contact us if you would like a PDF version of this article.
Creating universal modules: concept and benefits
We believe technical communicators should adopt the mass customization strategy already applied in manufacturing in order to break the trade-off between re-use and personalization. Indeed, by adding intelligence to the information modules, technical communicators can also produce universal modules that can be re-used easily while keeping the option to personalize the modules.
The key enabler for adding intelligence to documents
In technical communication, the key enabler for adding intelligence is XML. Technical communicators can add intelligence to the modules by means of XML conditions, where specific information can be put in a conditional structure. When re-using the module in a specific publication context, the non-relevant information can be filtered away enabling the information module to be fine-tuned for a specific context (illustration 3).
Universal modules do not equal granules
It is important to note that the approach of using universal modules is very different from other techniques for re-use such as working with small granularity or creating siblings or clones (sometimes also called variants). This technique does not achieve real re-use, as the duplication process ultimately results in two information modules with their own version management, translation processes, etc.
Working with small granularity aims to cut documents into very small pieces in order to stimulate their re-use. The idea here is that the smaller granularity of the information modules, the less specific the modules will be and the higher the chances will be that the modules can be re-used for other purposes.
The problem, however, is that as the granularity becomes smaller, the information producers will no longer be able to find the small information modules effectively and hence the desired re-use will simply not happen. Creating siblings or clones aims to break the trade-off between re-use and personalization by duplicating existing modules and then adapting them to meet specific information requirements.
This means that only the concept of universal modules effectively breaks the fundamental trade-off between re-use and personalization: the real shift for technical communicators. Indeed, through this approach, technical communicators can really start producing universal modules and consciously design them for re-use. They do not have to compromise on the specific information needs of their audience as specific information can be added to the universal module in a conditional structure.
There is no need to cut the modules into small, un-controllable pieces or to duplicate the modules.
Next: Benefits
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