Information Mapping

Subject: Information Mapping
From: Richard Dimock <red -at- ELSEGUNDOCA -dot- ATTGIS -dot- COM>
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 12:57:42 PDT

WHO:
Don at G.I.T.
Other techwr-lrs that are curious

INFORMATION MAPPING (R)
COURSE
Our department put writers through an
excellent on-site course on Information
Mapping:

"Strategies for Developing High Performance
Documentation", by Robert E. Horn

Information Mapping, Inc.
300 Third Avenue
Waltham, MA 02154
(800) MAP-4544


WHY: Information Mapping is a very good way of
communicating via hardcopy, and especially
via screen.

WHAT INFORMATION MAPPING IS:

It uses basic principles that every tech writer
instinctively understands; it expands upon those
principles; and it states them very coherently.

The Writer is taught to organize information
using simple but effective strategies, BEFORE
writing the document. This is a MAJOR DEPARTURE
from our traditional method.

The result is documentation that communicates
***extremely effectively***.

A secondary product is units of information
that can be reused in other ways with little
additional effort.


BEEN THERE, STILL DOING IT

Our department is phasing Information Mapping
into our manuals on a gradual basis. New manuals
are Information Mapped. Existing manuals get the
treatment where feasible.

There are ways of implementing it by degrees.

We are adapting Frame corporate templates to meet
the I.M. requirements. It works well.

It DOES take more time at the start, to get used
to researching and organizing totally, before writing.
But once that is done, the writing is a breeze.
The jury is still out on whether it takes longer
overall.


OPINION:

This brings our documentation out of the Fifties
and into the Eighties, fairly painlessly.


_____________________________________________

Dick Dimock, Artfully Senior Tech Writer
AT&T Global Information Solutions
El Segundo CA


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