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New article in Simplifying Complexity -- Ensuring information harmony in the larger documentation landscape

by Tom Johnson on Mar 7, 2018
categories: simplifying-complexity

In the Simplifying Complexity section of my site, I published a new article about how to ensure information harmony across a larger documentation landscape, where other articles might contain similar themes and information. In the article, I dive into two factors that increase complexity in a system: specialization and interconnectedness. Relevant to documentation scenarios, when subject matter experts contribute specialized articles into a larger system without understanding how their individual article interacts with other information in the system, the result is often a redundant, contradictory, and ever-increasing jumble of content. In this article, I explore ways to solve this problem through better metadata, primarily evaluating tags and whether they can help identify all known instances of content. You can read the article here: Ensuring information harmony in the larger documentation landscape.

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About Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson

I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, agent skills, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my AI courses for more on the latest in AI and tech comm. If you're looking for info about documenting APIs, see my API documentation course.

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Finally, I want to note a couple of things. I usually write the first drafts of my posts myself and then use AI to improve accuracy, clarity, and detail in places, so my writing is a mix of human and AI. (Hopefully that's not too off-putting.) Also, the opinions I express on my blog are my own perspectives, not those of my employer.

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