DITA: Not just for Tech Docs Ann Rockley The Rockley Group

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. The Rockley Group Inc. Summer 2007

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. The Rockley Group sample clients

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. DITA  Darwin Information Typing Architecture  Why Darwin?  Because it evolves (you can modify/specialize it)

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. DITA’s origin  Developed primarily by IBM in a response to the changing needs of the business:  Shorter cycle times  Reduced costs  More outputs  More flexibility  Increased effectiveness of materials  IBM gave it to the “world”, now it is an OASIS standard

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Design Goals  Move away from focus on books to multiple content types  Move towards the trend to minimalism  Provide more flexibility in structures and away from “monolithic” DTDs  Support maximum REUSE

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Benefits of DITA  Simplifies XML adoption  Allows new ways of working  Encourages standardization  Greater product functionality

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Simplifies XML adoption  Removes need to develop custom content types  Broader selection of standardized tools  Adapts easily to changing information needs

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Allows new ways of working  Facilitates intra-team collaboration, content sharing, content integration  Promotes reuse

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Encourages standardization  Combine industry-specific vocabularies with company-specific requirements  Better consistency and quality

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. The way DITA normally looks

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. A friendlier DITA

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. A more Word-like DITA

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Where we’re using DITA  Marketing Web site materials  Business analyst reports (print & Web)  Financial Institution (web)  eLearning materials  Goverment

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Key Concepts  XML  Modular content objects  Topics  DITA (topic) maps  Reuse

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. XML  The current “go to” technology for complex information development  Features:  Extensible  Hierarchical  Structural  Separates content from format  Open

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Modular content objects  Information stored as chunks (topics)  Topics to be reused as building blocks of content  Topics to be “typed” with predefined structures

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Topic development  All built on a single model of a generic topic  Topic defines the elements that are common to topics of all types  Base DITA also includes the following specialized types:  Concept  Task  Reference  Specialized types define additional elements that are specific to the type

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Sample Concept

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Sample Task

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Sample Reference

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. DITA (topic) maps  Look like TOCs.  Defines the organization, order, and hierarchy of topics in an content type  Provides pointers to topics (topics are not embedded)  Allows the same topic to appear in different places in a single content type … topics can also appear in different maps  Can add information about topics in the map to provide additional context

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Sample Map

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Reuse  Support for reuse is a key goal for DITA  Topics are written as self-contained chunks  Topics can be combined in different content types to provide needed variations

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Summary: Topics and maps  Topic Orientation  Topic: a unit of information that is meaningful when it stands alone  Maps  Organization of a set of topics, typically for different deliverables TopicsDITA mapsDeliverables

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Differentiation (selection attributes)  Used to produce similar yet different deliverables  Provides core content plus differentiations  Works through attributes (e.g. “state = DC”)

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Content References  Used when a piece of content, usually small, needs to appear in many different places and must be consistent  Examples:  Boilerplate text  Definitions  Policy statements

©2007, The Rockley Group Inc. Conclusion  DITA is a content standard that is gaining widespread acceptance  DITA can be extended, you can create your own component types and naming that match your content  DITA doesn’t have to be scary, it can look like MS Word  DITA makes sense in a non Technical Publications world

Questions? Ann Rockley The Rockley Group Inc