Les Burnham and Patrick Baker: Collecting DITA Content Contributions from SMEs

Copyright © Stilo International plc

Collecting DITA content

contributions from SMEs

Les Burnham | CEO

Patrick Baker | VP Development & Professional Services

Stilo International

| LAVACON 2016 LAS VEGAS

STILO | COLLECTING DITA CONTENT CONTRIBUTIONS FROM SMEs


► Legacy content conversion

► IMPORT to CCMS

► 1Million+ pages converted to DITA

| Stilo International (LSE:STL)

<high-performance content processing>

<XML authoring for SMEs>



| Our customers



► Who are the major SME contributors?

► Why should you care about collecting their DITA contributions?

► Do SMEs care?

► A hierarchy of intelligent content formats

► How best to proceed?

► Our collaboration with IBM

► Guided & Fluid authoring

► Implementing low-cost solutions

| What we’ll cover today



Customer

Support

Training

Engineering

Maintenance

Marketing

Supply chain

Partners

| Key SME contributors

Tech

Docs



Different classes of users

► e.g. developers & engineers who

make contributions to technical

authors, tech savvy

► Hundreds of users from all parts of the

business, with no concept of XML and

little or no technical knowledge

| SME profiles



| Why should YOU care about collecting contributions?

► Time to market pressures

► The trend is for SMEs to do more

and more writing

► …and for ID professionals to

become curators of content

This should be a consideration

from the outset when

implementing publishing

solutions for technical

documentation



► Little empathy with corporate

publishing/reuse requirements

► No time (or inclination) to learn

about DITA or XML

► No budget for specialist

authoring tools

► Need to make contributions

quickly, time-to-market pressures

| Do SMEs really care?



Highly

structured,

highly semantic

Semi-structured

Unstructured

● Learning curve

● Ease of Use

● Perceived cost

● Speed

● Consistent

● Highly reusable

● Repurposable

● Machine automatable

● Persistent

● Predictable

● Portable

● Adaptable

● Standardized

DITA

LwDITA

XML

Markdown & other implied or shorthand

Plain text, word processor, DTP

| A hierarchy of intelligent content formats

Image used with kind permission of Mike Iantosca, IBM Product Publications (ID) Tools Portfolio Owner, Digital Services Group | IBM



► Provide a simple, walk-up-and use

authoring experience

► Keep DITA, Markdown, and IA

considerations under the covers

► Convert (or copy & paste) from Word,

HTML…

► Use central publishing pipelines

► Be prepared to be flexible and integrate

different systems

► Keep it all as simple and low-cost as

possible

| A pragmatic approach is needed to maintain order



► Central ID Tools team

► Deployed in production June 2016

► Complements existing XML editors

| A collaborative effort



GUIDED + FLUID AUTHORING

► An easy to use, FAMILIAR and

attractive web interface

► Unobtrusive GUIDANCE

► Free-flowing FLUID authoring

► Semantically rich, PROCESSIBLE

content

| A walk-up-and-use authoring tool



What is the

fundamental

challenge?

► The user doesn't know what

is expected of them

| Guided authoring



► Guidance panel, specially

adapted for each document type

► Hover help for each part offered

in the guidance panel

► Inline assistive text for empty

parts in the editor

► All user interface controls provide

hover help and/or tool tips

► Writing tips provided in

end-user help

| Guided authoring



► User-friendly XML authoring tools

try to hide the complexity of XML

and be WYSIWYG

► But the structure keeps getting in

the way!

Wrestling with content structure…

… and winning

| Fluid authoring



Depending on the tool, author is confronted with

content structure in different ways:

► Popups with element name choices

whenever user hits ENTER

► Attribute sidebar with esoteric contents

► Non-local changes to content when

inserting things

► Poor copy and paste support

Wrestling with content structure …

| Fluid authoring



Fluid editing is not a big issue for non-XML

WYSIWYG editors, they are fairly fluid…

► That’s because the content authored

is pretty flat


Not so with XML …

● XML imposes structure – only certain

things are allowed in certain spots

● XML structure is highly recursive

(or nested)

| Fluid authoring



Flu

idity

Structure

MS Word

Typical XML Editor

But… this is

where we want

to be anyway! Unfortunately,

there is an inverse

relationship between

fluidity and structure.


| Fluid authoring



► If the XML structure is too

rigid for authoring … lose it

► Use a more relaxed structure

that will permit fluid editing

► Convert to the rigid XML

structure afterwards

How to build a user-friendly XML authoring

tool that provides a fluid authoring

experience?


| Fluid authoring



The right architecture for FLUID XML authoring

Conversion – a key part of the solution

► Just let the SME provide the content

► Conversion will figure things out by leveraging visual cues & context

| Fluid authoring

Trial portals available November 2016

Register at stilo.com/authorbridge

CLOUD



AuthorBridge

SME Contributors

Technical Author

XML editor

| Implementing affordable solutions

Shared RepositoriesFile System CCMS



Questionswww.stilo.com/authorbridge

[email protected]

THANK YOU!

Date post:	16-Apr-2017
Category:	Leadership & Management
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Les Burnham and Patrick Baker: Collecting DITA Content Contributions from SMEs

Leadership & Management