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

Fluidity
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

Questions
www.stilo.com/authorbridge
contact@stilo.com
THANK YOU!

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

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