Information Types

It's possible to group information into discreet types. Grouping information into types helps you to organize the data you've gathered from your SMEs, to make decisions about what data to include in your documents, and to make decisions about how to present that data. This article takes a look at information types and provides tips on using each type in your documents. It covers the following topics:

Conceptual Information
Procedural Information
Reference Information
Instructional Information
Wrap Up

Conceptual Information

Conceptual information orients your audience.

Conceptual information explains key concepts and the framework (high-level structure) of the product or service for which you are writing. It does not include product history or corporate philosophies. That's marketing material, not user documentation.

Some examples of conceptual information include case studies, white papers, summaries, and overviews. Any conceptual information should be written to your target audience and should focus on their needs. If you have to leave out information, do it. There's no need to include conceptual information that your target audience doesn't need, won't understand, or won't care about.

Procedural Information

Procedural information explains how to complete specific tasks by providing explicit directions.

Procedural information does not seek to teach your audience how to do something, but rather to walk your audience through each step of a task to get them immediate results. Assume your audience is accessing procedural information because they need to know how to do something right now, and they don't have the time, or don't want to take the time, to learn.

To that end, procedural information should be focused on accomplishing real-world tasks your audience will understand, and not on using features that your product or service contains. You don't have to include procedural information for accomplishing everything your audience will want to do. In some cases, such as high-end programs like Photoshop, that's impossible because there are just too many possibilities. You can make decisions about what to include and what not to include based on an understanding of your audience.

Reference Information

Reference information provides detailed data your audience needs in order to accomplish their tasks.

Reference information provides a quick way to look up data that your audience shouldn't be expected to remember, such as color values for a graphics program or valid data values for a table column. Reference information often appears in the form of tables at the end of a chapter or in the appendix of a book.

It's best to keep all of the reference material in a single location, making it easier for your audience to know where they should look for the data they need. You should group reference material into logical categories. It doesn't make sense to include a list of color values along with tables that discuss valid data values in a database, unless the color values are among the valid data values.

Instructional Information

Instructional information helps your audience become knowledgeable users.

Instructional information helps those audience members who want to understand what they are doing and provides them with the knowledge they need to take advantage of every aspect of the product or service for which you are writing. This is different from procedural information, which only tells your audience how to accomplish an immediate task without the additional goal of teaching.

Instructional information often includes many examples that tie the real-world experiences of your audience into the product or service for which you are writing. It may include exercises that give your audience an opportunity to practice using the product or service without fear of negative consequences when they make errors. It may also provide conceptual information that explains how the current tasks relate to the "big picture."

Instructional information includes workbooks and other training materials.

Wrap Up

This article covered four types of information that you might include in your documentation:

conceptual
procedural
reference
instructional

While it's useful to be aware of these types of information, you do not have to consciously mold your data into one or more types. It's better to think of these types as a silent guide post to keep in the back of your mind while you're creating your documents. The best documents will combine the information types. How you do this will depend on the needs of your target audience.