The Convergence of Technical Communication and Information Architecture: Managing Single-Source Objects for Contemporary Media

Single sourcing, XML, and other forms of multimedia have changed technical communicators’ work processes and on-the-job duties. Beyond the requirements for traditional skills in writing, editing, and designing, technical communicators must now play enhanced roles within professional environments including organizing, creating, and managing information. To help simplify the complex tasks of creating multimedia documents, in this article we examine the impact that new technologies have had on the technical communication profession. Referring to a wide variety of sources about the fundamental changes to our profession, we synthesize information regarding managing multimedia documents. Although in this article we focus on object management, with an emphasis on the tasks, skills, and tools required of authors of such documents, in future articles we will address object creation and object presentation.