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Information Mapping Desktop Guide

6 STEPS
to better business
communications

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By making your business communications clear, understandable, and easy to

use, you can help your organization improve productivity, comply with
regulatory requirements, and gain advantage in todays increasingly competitive
marketplace.
When your policies and procedures, reference documents, training materials
and other business communications are user-focused, concise and easy to
follow, your entire organization will benefit from improved compliance, reduced
error rates, a safer work environment, enhanced employee performance and
increased customer retention.

This Guide provides six simple steps to follow as you write, assess or revise your
organizations business communications. The steps are distilled from the
principles of the Information Mapping Method, a proven, research-based
structured authoring methodology that makes information easy to access,
understand and use.

About Information Mapping

Information Mapping has over four decades of experience in helping

organizations reduce risk and enhance productivity by creating more effective
communications. Information Mappings professional services, training
programs and software solutions are in daily use within organizations in multiple
industries all over the world.
The Information Mapping Method is a systematic, research-based approach to
creating business communications that are accessible, clear and user-focused.
The Method consists of a set of easily learned principles and techniques for
analyzing, organizing and presenting information. It provides organizations with
a content standard that is highly effective for communications ranging from
emails and memos to complex systems documentation.
While this Guide will not teach you to use the Method, it is designed to help you
look at information in a new way. It will provide you with tips and ideas that can
help you improve the quality of virtually any written business communication.

OVERVIEW

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One of the most common mistakes writers make is to create documents and
reference materials in a one size fits all fashion without considering the needs
of different audiences. This leads to problems for readers, because one size
rarely, if ever, fits all.

Help all your readers find what they need

Say you are developing procedures for emergency evacuation. The document
you create may be read by security personnel, executive management, and also
by an audit team. Each group will require a different level of information. In the
same manner, a new hire filling out an expense report for the first time needs a
different level of detail than an experienced salesperson who just wants to check
the meal allowance before completing a weekly report.
When information for different audiences is mixed together without considering
audience needs, it creates confusion, inefficiencies, frustration, and mistakes.
Organizing the information so each audience can quickly find what theyre
looking forand skip what they dont needwill greatly increase the
effectiveness of your documents.

STEP 1: AUDIENCE

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To ensure that each of your audiences can quickly find

the information they need, before you begin writing,
ask yourself these questions:
Who are my audiences?
Who needs to do what?

What do they need to know in order to do it?

As you review existing documents, ask these
questions:

Is the right level of detail provided for different

audiences?
Can each audience easily find and access the
information they need, where and when they
need it?
Do they find the document easy to understand
and use?

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information
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Information is easiest to find and understand when it is categorized based on its

purpose for the audience. This table describes six distinct Information Types that
account for 80 to 90 percent of the content of most business communications.

Information Types
Information Type
Procedure
Process
Principle
Fact
Concept
Structure

Description
A set of steps that a person performs to accomplish a
task.
A series of events or stages that occurs over time and
has a specific result.
A statement that dictates behavior, such as a rule,
policy, or guideline.
A statement that is assumed to be true.
An abstract idea that needs to be defined or explained.
A physical representation of parts and boundaries,
including charts, diagrams, pictures, and graphical
representations of relationships.

STEP 2: PURPOSE

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Create a list of topics for your document by

considering what your audience needs to know about
each Information Type.
Ask these questions:

Have you identified the procedures your readers

need to perform?
Have you determined what they need to know
to perform successfully?
Have you separated nice to know from need
to know information?

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Now that you have broken down your information into its components, you are
ready to organize and sequence it based on what readers need to do and what
they need to know in order to be successful.

If your document includes extraneous information that buries important details

or fails to anticipate questions that may be asked, then your readers will quickly
become frustrated. They may turn to supervisors, coworkers or other sources
for the answers they needbut the answers they get may not be accurate,
complete or up-to-date.

For example:
If employees must wear safety goggles when performing a metal grinding
procedure, you should bring that requirement to their attention early in the
document, and make sure that its placed prominently, where it wont be
missed. This is important information that belongs right up front, not buried in
dense text or left until late in the procedure.

STEP 3: ORGANIZATION

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Always put yourself in the readers shoes.

Ask these questions:

Have you presented information in the order in

which readers need to access and use it?
Have you explained new concepts for the
benefit of novices, while making it easy for
experts to skip these explanations?
Have you placed cautions and warnings
prominently at the beginning of a procedure,
rather than burying them in dense text or
leaving them as notes at the end?

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Consistency is critical. Be consistent in your use of terms, acronyms,

abbreviations, and formats. Consistency aids comprehension, making it easier
for readers to understand where to find and how to interpret complex
information. Business communications are not the place for writers to exercise
creativity.

Follow these guidelines for achieving consistency:

Decide on the terms you want to use, and apply them consistently. For
example, an illustration should not later be called a graphic.
Decide on a standard way to present each type of information. For
example, every procedure should follow the same format.
Once you have defined an acronym, continue to use that acronym. For
example, after introducing Department of Energy (DOE), use DOE
throughout the document.
If you have typically presented a certain type of information in a table
format, do not later present that information as a graph, simply to add
variety.

STEP 4: CONSISTENCY

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Varying your terminology may be desirable in creative

writing, but in business communications aim for
consistency so readers wont become confused.
Ask these questions:
Have you clearly defined terms, acronyms and
abbreviations and used them consistently?
Have you presented the different information
types in consistent formats?

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Ask employees where they go to find information, and observe them to see
how long it takes them to get answers to their questions. Do you see excessive
use of sticky-notes, bookmarks, and copies of controlled documents? Are
supervisors and help desks being flooded with questions?

When employees cannot find the information they need, it is often because
necessary details have been relegated to appendices or stuck in other places
where they may be missed.
Make information easier to find with access aids such as a table of contents, an
index, titles and labels, and hyperlinks. Charts, tables, graphics and bulleted
lists also make important information stand out.

STEP 5: ACCESSIBILITY

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Use clear and succinct labels to help readers find

information quickly.
Ask these questions:

Did you include access aids, such as a table of

contents, index and hyperlinks?
Are titles and labels descriptive and distinct?

Are charts, tables, graphics and bulleted lists

used to help highlight and clarify information?
Is the information stored and distributed in a
way that makes it available when and where it is
needed?

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Creating content in small, modular units allows you to easily reuse the content
for multiple purposes without losing the integrity of the information.

For example:

Installation instructions you developed for a user manual can be repurposed

for technical guides, training documents, and sales and marketing materials.
Similarly, key concepts surrounding the necessity for Anti-Money Laundering
Act compliance can be used in training, customer service, security, and IT.
Reusing information in a consistent way from one document to the next helps
ensure compliance and reduce corporate risk.

Research has shown that creating content in small, well-defined units also
makes information easier to find and remember, aids comprehension, and
significantly reduces the time it takes to update and revise documents. If your
documents arent structured into small, well-defined information modules that
are grouped together into meaningful topics, it will be difficult to ensure
compliance and productivity.

STEP 6: REUSABILITY

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Think of your modules of information as building

blocks that can be reused to assemble other
documents.
Ask these questions:

Have you created small, well-defined units of

information?
Have you grouped information into meaningful,
relevant topics?
Can your units of information easily be reused
for multiple purposes?

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BEFORE: Why write instructions like this?

Thawing Bagels

Its important to plan baking times carefully so that the bagels do not remain on
the racks for more than four hours after thawing. Bagels that are left on the
racks for more than four hours must be discarded. After placing the bagels on
the thawing trays, place the trays on every other shelf of the rack and do not
close the covers. This will thaw the bagles in 1 to 2 hours. To thaw them in 4
hours, place the trays on every shelf on the rack, then close the covers. To thaw
them between 4 and 24 hours, place them on every shelf of the rack, close the
covers, and place them in the refrigirator.

AFTER: When you can write them like this!

Thawing Bagels
If you want to thaw
the bagels in

Then place the trays

1 to 2 hours

on every other shelf of the rack, and

do not close the covers.

4 hours

on every shelf of the rack, and

close the covers.

4 to 24 hours

on every shelf of the rack

close the covers, and
put the rack in the refrigirator.

B&A

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When you improve the quality of your documentation, you help improve
productivity and reduce corporate risk.
Ask these questions to determine the quality of your documentation.

Have you assessed your audiences needs?

Have you categorized your information by type

and purpose?
Is the information organized from the readers
perspective?
Are the language and formatting of your
document consistent?

Have you made the information accessible to

those who need it, when and how they need it?
Is the information presented in small, welldefined, easily reusable units?

CHECKLIST

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Join the thousands of individuals and leading organizations who have

transformed the way they write and work through the power of Information
Mapping.

www.informationmapping.com

Information Mapping International - T +32 (0)9 253 14 25

Information Mapping US - T +1-800-463-6627
Information Mapping India - T +91 (80) 6793 5328/29

CONTACT