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I’m Sharon Burton ▪ Content Strategy consultant
Been in the Tech Comm industry for nearly 20 years STC Associate Fellow
Teach: ▪ Technical Communication to Engineering students at the University
of California, Riverside
▪ Tech Comm certificate program at UCR Extension
▪ STC Certificate Courses
▪ University of Redlands
I knit, crochet, design patterns, write, garden, have a large dog, and am all around just fun
Quick definition
Topic-based authoring is a modular content creation approach (popular in the technical publications and documentation arenas) that supports XML content reuse, content management, and makes the dynamic assembly of personalized information possible.
A topic is a discrete piece of content that is about a specific subject, has an identifiable purpose, and can stand alone (does not need to be presented in context for the end-user to make sense of the content).
Topics are also reusable. They can, when constructed properly (without reliance on other content for its meaning), be reused in any context anywhere needed.
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is a standard designed to help authors create topic-based content. The standard is managed by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) DITA Technical Committee.
From Wikipedia
Focuses effort on the information your user needs to use the product Develop a body of information that’s helpful to the user
Maximize content reuse Roughly similar to structuring an online help system People who’ve developed a lot of help “get” these
concepts faster If you are moving to DITA, it’s part of the trip But you don’t have to move to DITA to make use of this
information development method
This can be a destination as well as a rest stop
Topics are small, perhaps ½ to 4 printed pages Perhaps smaller
Only include the information needed to Perform one procedure Understand one concept
Topics can be (re)combined New products, deliverables, or other ways
Topics are easier to update Easier and cheaper to get approval for updating topics
from management Depending on deliverables, push updated topics to
your users
Library
Printing Reports
Using Container
Objects
Saving reports Creating
Reports
About Schedules
Adding Users
Setting Permissions
Deleting Users
Placing Objects
About Objects
About Users
Exporting Objects
About Containment
Customizing Objects
About Programming
Objects and Inheritance
Editing Reports
Containing Objects
Relating Objects Importing
Reports
Setting Schedules About
Reports
Library
Admin Guide
• About Users
• Adding Users
• Deleting Users
• Setting Permissions
• About Reports
• Creating Reports
• Editing Reports
• Saving Reports
• Printing Reports
• Importing Reports
Programmers Guide
• About Programming
• About Objects
• Placing Objects
• About Containment
• Objects and Inheritance
• Using Container Objects
• Customizing Objects
• Relating Objects
Getting Started
• About Users
• About Reports
• About Programming
• About Objects
• About Containment
• Exporting Objects
• About Schedules
How to mess this up
Management and other teams need to understand why this is better
This is not going to see an instant and dramatic improvement
Except localization
Costs may drop immediately
Schedules may be impacted Less content can be scary
The tools that got you into this mess are probably not the tools to get you out
Asking Techwr-l what they use and buying that not the answer
Doesn’t hurt to ask
Evaluate what your needs are now and in the future
Work with the vendors closely to make sure what you need is what they can do
The processes for developing, editing, and publishing a 200 page manual won’t work
Developing Topic-based content is different Topics “stand alone” on content and/or
formatting Topics are reviewed as they are ready Review process must change
Maybe use a special review product
New tools + new process = training Not training sets projects and people up for
failure Training provides more than how to use the
product
Includes best practices for our workflow
Identifies the changes for our workflow
Instantiates how we do what we do
Your legacy content is not going to fit neatly It’s at least not well written/structured/organized
You can’t jump on your horse and ride off in all directions You need to analyze what you have before you can decide
what you have One manual may not give you the real picture Especially if you had a lot of contractors, the legacy
content has been around a long time, and so on This can be very hard People want their content to be the exception It’s special content, not like other content and needs
special attention
Before we can start thinking about moving to topic-based authoring And gaining the benefits thereof
We must have good writing standards in place Content reuse demands consistent writing
standards The content can appear in many places
In more than one deliverable You may need to localize so why not
prepare now?
Because most tools allow you to import and slice your legacy content based on headings, it can feel like you’re done when you import
That’s step #1 of x and x is bigger than 2 Now you need to think about
Content reuse
Smaller topics
Embedded topics (snippets)
Localization?
Rewriting existing content is expensive You can’t reuse what you can’t find Opportunistic reuse People remember this content from before Maybe they can find it Big time sink
Systematic reuse The system knows this content has been written
previously Prompts the writer for reuse Tracks reuse and reports it
Develop information based on the users’ information needs The next logical step in Minimalism
Matches the Use Case or Scenario dev environment
Minimalism is not writing as little as possible It’s developing the information your users actually
need
NOT how the database is structured
How to run a report and print it
Your legacy content is going to fit neatly in content categories
It won’t take any time to figure this out We can do this as we need to It’s easy We’ll hire an intern to do it We can meet deadlines while we
completely restructure all our content
Single Sourcing: Building Modular Documentation by Kurt Ament ISBN-10: 0815514913 or ISBN-13: 978-0815514916
Information Development: Managing Your Documentation Projects, Portfolio, and People by JoAnn T. Hackos ISBN-10: 0471777110 or ISBN-13: 978-0471777113
User and Task Analysis for Interface Design by JoAnn T., PhD Hackos and Janice C. Redish ISBN-10: 0471178314 or ISBN-13: 978-0471178316
Wait a Minute, I Have to Take Off My Bra, 2011. ISBN-10: 0981333516.
Anthology of creative non-fiction and poetry My first creative non-fiction book publication You should by it! Available on Amazon. Click here.
