Beyond Schemas: Planning Your XML Model

Documents and Deliverables Structures

Defining your documents and deliverables in the beginning of the project is often a hard task to complete because you don't actually know what content you have to include in your deliverables at the beginning planning stage. The purpose of defining a document and deliverable structure is to provide an initial standard for consistency that you can further refine.

Your document structure definitions provide an outline for what to include in the document deliverable. Your production coordinator is responsible for making sure each piece is in the final deliverable. The document structure definitions identify one or more information types needed to create the final deliverable.

Defining your document structure is very similar to how you define your information types, content units, and elements. Your document structure definition includes the following:

• Narrative definition

• Contents outline

• Diagram

• Metadata attributes

Example document structure definition

Part 1. The document structure definition describes what a user would find in any user guide delivered from your company. It also describes who the intended user of this deliverable is.

Part 1. User guide definition

User guides provide your users with a task-based approach to working with your product. Create your user guides with end users in mind, not technicians or sales staff. Some features of your product may be described in the user guide, but the features will directly support and provide background ...