The State of Structure
Sarah O’Keefe
scriptorium
STC 2009, Atlanta

Structured authoring
A publishing workflow that lets you define and
automatically enforce consistent organization of
information; implementations are generally based on
Extensible Markup Language (XML).
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Background
Ƿ Survey conducted in January and February
2009
Ƿ More than 600 responses
Ƿ Participants recruited via our customer lists
and thecontentwrangler.com
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Momentum for structured authoring
Have implemented. 29.2%
Currently implementing. 13.5%
Will begin this year. 8.9%
1.0%
Plan to start in 2010.
Plan to start in 2011 or later. 0.6%
Eventually. 9.4%
Undecided. 21.1%
Do not plan to implement. 16.2%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
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Why structure?
Past
Consistency
Present
Future
Reuse
Localization
Info exchange
Compliance
Personalization
Cost/effort
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Most critical Not important
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DITA versus non-DITA
Ƿ DITA implementers care (relatively) more
about localization, cost/effort, and information
Ƿ Most critical for DITA: reuse
Ƿ Most critical for non-DITA: consistency
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Just say no to structure
Ƿ 16 percent said No. Never. Nuh-uh.
Ƿ Of those, 67 percent cited cost and time of
implementation.
Ƿ Other reasons: “staff will not adjust”
(30+ percent)
Ƿ Small writing groups, small content set, lack
of control, management sees no value, current
tools work
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Did it work? Yes.
Factor Ranked 1 or 2 Achieved by
Content reuse 60.7% 86.0%
Consistency of documents 59.7% 91.5%
Cost/effort of developing 28.2% 70.5%
content
Localization costs 25.2% 38.8%
Information exchange 11.2% 45.7%
Personalization/ 15.4% 38.8%
customization of content
Compliance with regulatory 9.4% 21.7%
requirements
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DITA dominates structure adoption.
DocBook
DITA
ATA
Past
Military standard
Present
Future
S1000D
Custom-developed
Other
Author-it
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Percent
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DITA: Free but not cheap
Ƿ Past implementers: same cost as other
structures
Ƿ Present implementers: DITA
implementation is more expensive than
other structures
Ƿ Future implementers: estimate DITA
at significantly lower cost than other
structures.
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DITA cost factors (not survey data)
Ƿ Specialization
Ƿ Output requirements beyond Open Toolkit
(especially web-based help)
Ƿ Complex formatting in PDF
Ƿ Legacy documentation
Ƿ Large number of contributors
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Wishful thinking?
100
80
Outside resources
Mostly outside
60
Percentage
Mostly employees
Employees
40
20
0
2–5 ppl. 16–50 ppl. 1 person 6–15 ppl. 50+ ppl. 2–5 ppl. 16–50 ppl.
1 person 6–15 ppl. 50+ ppl. 2–5 ppl. 16–50 ppl. 1 person 6–15 ppl. 50+ ppl
Past Present Future
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Authoring tools
Ƿ Winners: Arbortext, structured FrameMaker,
XMetaL
Ƿ Surprises: oXygen, Flare
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Market share
Tool By implementation By seats
Arbortext 10% 15%
oXygen 18% 18%
Structured 35% 23%
FrameMaker
XMetaL 37% 44%
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Change management
Ƿ Over 30 percent of non-implementers said,
“Staff will not adjust.”
Ƿ Nearly 30 percent of past implementers had
“some” or “a lot” of turnover.
Ƿ Nearly 20 percent of current implementers
had “some or “a lot” of turnover.
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“What was your biggest mistake?”
Ƿ “Underestimated”
Ƿ “Failure to plan”
Ƿ “Insufficient analysis”
Ƿ 37 percent cited project management
problems, double the number of any other
issue.
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How to improve outcomes?
Private training.
Ƿ Private, customized training increases
implementation success.
Ƿ But…it also correlates with change
resistance!
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Recommendations
Ƿ Planning!
Ƿ Assess motivation
Ƿ Provide training and education
Ƿ Manage the development process
Ƿ Address content migration
Ƿ Choose tools and technologies wisely
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Questions?
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Contact information
Ƿ Sarah O’Keefe
Ƿ Scriptorium Publishing
Ƿ www.scriptorium.com
Ƿ okeefe@scriptorium.com
Ƿ Scriptorium is exhibiting; stop by and visit us.
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