Functional design
As a functional design since around 1992 their developers call Jürgen Muthig ( Hochschule Karlsruhe - Technik und Wirtschaft ) and Robert sheep-Armbruster ( Furtwangen ) a system for standardizing and structuring of technical documentation . The method emerged from speech act theory .
Information is organized hierarchically in functional elements :
- top level: information product (e.g. operating instructions)
- second level: sequence pattern (for example "step-by-step" sequence of actions)
- third level: functional units (for example 1st prerequisite for action, 2nd action step, 3rd action result)
- fourth level: markup element (for example button)
The functional design method assigns a specific communicative function ( speech act ) to each text segment (as a functional unit) . These are not used freely, but are firmly defined in their sequence. In addition to the sequencing and use of the functional units, linguistic rules can also be defined (for example, always write “instructions” in the imperative, controlled language ).
All of the above rules can be set out in an editorial guide. Text production can be made easier by these restrictions and the work of several different authors can be standardized. The standardization and consistency of the texts creates the basis for reusability and automation. Various desktop publishing programs can support text production through defined format templates for the functional units. The functional design method can also be implemented in an editorial system. The hierarchical structure and sequencing can be mapped well with XML and processed automatically.
The term functional design has been protected as a trademark since 2006 .
literature
- Jürgen Muthig (Ed.): Standardization methods for technical documentation (= Tekom-Hochschulschriften, Volume 16). Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2008, ISBN 978-3-7950-7066-3 ; 2nd edition, tcworld, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-944449-35-7
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jürgen Muthig, Robert Schäflein-Armbruster: Functional design: A universal and flexible standardization technique
- ↑ Mustafa Acar: Functional design in seven steps. In: documentation department. December 10, 2017, accessed on May 4, 2020 (German).
- ↑ The editorial guide | documentation department . In: documentation department . December 14, 2017 ( doku-abteilung.de [accessed May 4, 2020]).