Figure: The place of standards in creating technical documentation

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  What a document should provide
  
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  What terminology should be used
  
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  How the documentation should be presented and laid out.
  

The standards that you apply to your documentation will vary depending on your industry, your organisation, and even the particular project. The whole idea of standards is to ensure consistency and quality.

Standards are set both by industry and the organisation for which you work. You’ll need to determine what those standards are. One way you can start to do this is to critically examine a number of good examples. It is also true to say that these standards change over time along with business practices.

Standards are essential for producing good documentation. They provide guidelines on what content to include, the writing style and the format of the document. Standards make it easier to develop, use and maintain documentation.