Full-on DITA strategies beyond tech pubs

2015 DITA Summit – Information Development World, San Jose, California

Presentation abstract• DITA has the potential to add tremendous utility to high-value content

for the enterprise. Before embarking on a DITA transformation project, organizations must first take a step back to examine their requirements for utility, maintainability, and usability of their content. This means not putting the technology cart before the horse. This session will take a brief look back at exploratory work conducted by the Business Documents Subcommittee of the DITA TC and how tools and methods have evolved since. We will examine the value of useful semantic markup and models for the enterprise and talk about several DITA projects involving non-traditional users and audiences.

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About your presenter• Rob Hanna, ECMs

• President of Precision Content Authoring Solutions Inc. and a director of AIIM First Canadian Chapter

• Expert in structured authoring and content management practices and technology

• Instructor at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies – Metadata and Controlled Vocabularies

Who is Precision Content Authoring Solutions Inc.?• We help organizations make their information easier to use• Our solutions consist of • Content strategy• Detailed information architecture• Content lifecycle design and development• Turn-key content transformation• Tools selection and development• Multi-channel publishing

• www.precisioncontent.com

©2015 Precision Content Authoring Solutions Inc.

WE ARE YOUR CONTENT

TRANSFORMATION

SPECIALISTS

Full-on DITA Strategies• Look for problems in likely places• Soft-peddle the technology and focus on the content• Show the end-result as the “art of the possible”• Look for Cloud or SaaS solutions for early prototyping – keep IT at bay• Look to other less traditional outputs• Keep pushing your solution upstream• Think globally and act locally

STOP THE INSANITY!Stop throwing

more technology at your content

problems!

Content problemsrequire

content solutions!

Importance of Content StrategyBefore any technology is considered, organizations must first consider their content strategy to fully understand what they need and how they are going to get there.

Several factors must be examined.

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Do we have a problem that needs solving?• 5,900,000,000 google searches per

day (who did we ask these questions to before Google?)• 540,000 word in the English

language – 5 times more than in Shakespeare’s time• 90% of the world’s data has been

generated in the last 2 years

In the year … Human knowledge doubled every…

1900 100 years

1945 25 years

2014 13 months

2020 12 hours

Did you know? Shift Happens 2014 Remix – Youtube.com

Early days in structured authoring• 1997 GML• Documentation process long and

fraught with opportunities for human error• Parsed GML into Access• Created taxonomies• Integrated structured data• Output to HTML (.chm)

Enterprise Business Document Subcommittee – OASIS DITA TC• Examined authoring issues• Content models• Tore down templates• Built up models from architypes• Developed abstract layer

Language ArtsLanguage Arts for Personal Response (LAFPR)• To emotionally engage the reader• Techniques:• narrative style• varied vocabulary & sentence

structure• withholding information

• Writer driven• Meant to be READ

Language Arts for Information (LAFI)• To convey information that

readers need to use• Techniques:• consistent modular structure• concise, direct vocabulary• use of graphics

• Reader driven• Meant to be USED

Ikea Instructions: LAFI

Ikea Instructions: LAFPR • If novelist Michael Ondaatje wrote Ikea instructions ….

“The eel-shaped talisman squirms inside the raspy recycled box. A series of quarter turns – clock hands marking time – bonds back to base. An alphabet of

connections in English and French. A into groove B. C slots into D. Chipboard credenza communicating Swedish

hegemony.”• Author/parodist: Geoff Thomas

Globe & Mail, August 27, 2009

analyst brake market stapler seat traders alternator investor calculators

scissors engine pedal dashboard pen backers marker tape profit starter

ruler prospects

Thinking about ClassificationHow many words can you memorize in 20 seconds?

analyst brake market stapler

dashboard pen backer marker

seat trader alternator investor

pedalcalculator scissors engine

tape profit starter ruler prospect

Thinking about Classification1. Filter out all of the noise

analyst brake market stapler

dashboard pen

backer

marker

seat

trader

alternator

investor

pedalcalculator scissors engine

tapeprofitstarter

ruler prospect

Thinking about Classification2. Break into smaller groupings

dashboardalternator pedalbrake seatengine starter

marker

staplerscissorstape

pen calculatorruler

analyst market backer

investortraderprofitprospect

Thinking about Classification3. Organize words by similarities

dashboardalternator pedalbrake seatengine starter

marker

staplerscissorstape

pen calculatorruler

analyst market backer

investortraderprofitprospect

Stock market Office supplies

Car parts

Thinking about Classification4. Classify and label groups

Thinking about Classification

Stock market Office supplies Car partsanalyst stapler brakemarket calculator seattrader scissors dashboard

investor pen enginebacker marker alternatorprofit tape starter

prospect ruler pedal

How well did you do?

Thinking about Classification

Vegetables Computer parts Instrumentspeas hard drive violin

endive sound card harpcarrots monitor pianospinach mouse trumpetcelery processor cello

broccoli flash drive flutetomato keyboard guitar

Now how many words can youmemorize in 20 seconds?

Structured building blocks of information

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XML is EverywhereXML defines meaningful data structures for documents and data. It is a human-readable file format used to power

• manufacturing assembly lines

• medical devices

• military applications, and

• many other things.

XML is the language of the Web. It enables smart phones and web browsers.

Intelligent Content• Content that is• not limited to one

• purpose• technology, or• output

• structurally rich and semantically aware, making it• discoverable• reusable• reconfigurable, and• adaptable.

A New Way of Thinking about ContentPrecision Content™ is like software for the brain

ProgrammedLearning

Instructional Systems Design

Human FactorsEngineering Documentat

ion Writing Research

MessageDesign

CognitivePsychology

Meeting 2 sets of fundamental needs

The Human Brain

Technology

Find

Understand

Use, and

Retain

Integrate

Search

Process, andReuse

Well-structured content helps

Excerpt from a medical reference...• pN3 description only closely

mirrors descriptions for pN3a +pN3b + pN3c• Use of footnotes confusing• “Clinically detected” and “Not

clinically detected” are not exact opposites, and• Inconsistent enumeration of lymph

nodes

Same content after Precision Content™• 44.2% reduction in word count• 20% reduction in passive voice• 18.4% increase in Flesch Reading Ease

score• 30% increase in white space• Elimination of footnotes, and• Addition of labels and visual elements

Information typing and classification• The cornerstone of the methodology is based on correctly identifying,

typing, and labelling blocks of content that comprise a topic• Each information type has its own rules and semantics for authoring,

labelling, and presentation.• Precision Content consists of 5 distinct information types including• Reference• Principle• Concept• Task, and• Process.

Adapted DITA topic types and structures• Concept, task, and reference are simplified but essentially the same• All topics are authored using blocks and titles• New sub-blocks introduced• Each block is assigned an information type

New Precision Content™ topic typesProcess• Specialized from Task• Introduces• Stages• Actors, and• Actions

Principle• Specialized from Topic• Introduces• Principle Statement• Applicability• Outcome, and• Resolution

Information Types

Reference

Principle

Task

Process

Concept

“We will be flying at an altitude of 60,000 feet.”

“Always put on your oxygen mask before

assisting other passengers.”

“To open the emergency exit,

look out the window, pull the

lever, and push out the exit door.”

“In the event of loss of cabin pressure,

an oxygen mask will drop from the

overhead compartment.”

“We are a member of the Star Alliance group of airlines.”

Flight safety briefing

Architectural modularity of Precision Content™ Client Specilization

Modules

Precision Content™ Modules

OASIS DITA Domains

OASIS DITA 1.2 Modules

Our solution can be implemented at varying levels of architectural precision

Each layer represents greater consistency and guidance for authors

DITA constraintsUsing DITA’s standard constraint mechanism, Precision Content™

• eliminates 77 elements from the base specification

• eliminates elements unnecessary domains

• simplifies element structures, and

• introduces controlled vocabularies for element attributes.

Where?

Who? What?

How?

Why?

What is the Enterprise Content Metamodel?

• first published in the 2005 STC conference proceedings• describes the

relationships of information within the information ecosystem

Role

Ability

Objective

Event

Process Task

Concept

Reference

Principle

Design

Requirement

Past

Pre

sent

F

utur

e

When?

Questions?Rob Hanna, ECMs+1 (289) 290-4337www.linkedin.com/in/singlesourcerorrob@precisioncontent.com