Software Documentation Terminology Consistency Checking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Technical documents for software products often suffer from inconsistencies and incompleteness in terminology, leading to user confusion and increased post-sales support, as well as difficulties in machine translation and interrogation, due to the use of synonyms and varying terminology for the same elements or concepts.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method and system that processes technical documents to extract terms denoting software product elements, checks these terms against an ontology and synonym database, and updates a notification database to highlight anomalies and recommend amendments, ensuring consistent and complete terminology use.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If synonyms and varying terminology are used for the same elements in technical documents, then the documentation becomes more flexible and adaptable, but user confusion increases and consistency deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary processing of the technical document to extract terms and proactively checks them against the ontology and synonym database before finalization. This advance verification prevents terminology inconsistencies from propagating through the documentation, resolving the contradiction by maintaining flexibility in drafting while ensuring consistency in the final output.
Solution Approach 2:
The system generates notifications about terminology anomalies and provides feedback to document authors. This feedback mechanism allows authors to maintain flexible drafting while receiving corrective guidance to improve consistency, thus resolving the contradiction between adaptability and stability.
2Manufacturing precision
If manual review of technical documents for terminology consistency is performed, then terminology accuracy improves, but time consumption and processing cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system replaces manual mechanical review with an automated computational process that extracts terms, checks them against the ontology and synonym database, and generates consistency reports. This substitution maintains high terminology accuracy while dramatically reducing the time and human resources required, resolving the contradiction between precision and time consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables self-service terminology verification where the documentation process automatically checks itself against predefined ontological standards. This self-verification mechanism maintains accuracy without requiring external manual review, thus resolving the contradiction between precision and time loss.
3Reliability
If comprehensive terminology checking is performed against ontology and synonym databases, then terminology completeness and consistency improve, but system complexity and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system introduces an intermediary layer consisting of the ontology and synonym database that mediates between the technical document and the checking process. This intermediary structure organizes terminology knowledge in a standardized format, enabling reliable consistency checking without requiring complex ad-hoc analysis, thus resolving the contradiction between reliability and system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The ontology and synonym database serve as universal reference structures that can be applied to check multiple terms across the entire technical document. This multi-functional approach enables comprehensive terminology verification through a single standardized mechanism, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining high reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
A method, computer system, and computer program product may include the steps of processing at least a part of the technical document to extract a term denoting a given element of the software program product, performing a respective check on whether the extracted term is correspondingly recorded in at least one of an accessible ontology and an accessible synonym database, whereby each ontology entry comprises a corresponding preferred term in respect of the given element of the software program product, and the accessible synonym database comprises respective entries of the corresponding preferred term, and a synonym corresponding to the corresponding preferred term, in respect of the given element of the software program product, and updating an accessible notification database according to a given check performed against at least one of the accessible ontology database and the accessible synonym database.