Enabling Mass Customization for Communication: a Paradigm Shift
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Rombauts, Yves
Trisoft

Abstract:

This article will discuss how technical communicators can break the fundamental trade-off between the need to re-use as much information as possible on one hand and the need to produce customer specific technical communication on the other hand. I will begin with a description of the fundamental trade-off between re-use and customized communication. I then make an analogy with the field of manufacturing, which has found ways to deal with a similar trade-off. Universal information modules are introduced as the solution, allowing the application of the manufacturing principle of mass customization to technical communication. The article ends by outlining the requirements needed for supporting tools to apply the notion of universal information modules.