topicdriven

Topicdriven is a design and content organization approach that treats topics—the discrete subjects or concepts a user might want to understand—as the primary unit of structure. In a Topicdriven system, information and functionality are built, authored, and linked around topics rather than around pages, modules, or services. This enables content to be composed, discovered, and repurposed by topic, supporting reuse across channels and audiences.

The concept draws on topic-based authoring and modular content practices used in knowledge management and technical communication. A Topicdriven model emphasizes small, self-contained units of information (topics) with defined inputs and outputs, explicit metadata, and clear relationships to related topics. Content can be assembled dynamically to form documents, help systems, or data views tailored to a user's current topic of interest.

In software and data architectures, Topicdriven can also describe systems that organize messaging, data streams, or services by topic identifiers, enabling publish/subscribe routing and topic-centric governance. Benefits include improved reuse and localization, consistent terminology, better searchability, and flexible multi-channel delivery. Challenges include establishing governance to manage topic boundaries, avoiding fragmentation, ensuring consistency across topics, and requiring tooling that supports topic-level authoring and linkage.

See also: topic-based authoring, information architecture, single-sourcing, publish/subscribe, content reuse.