This document summarizes a presentation about expanding the use of DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) beyond technical publications. It discusses how organizations should focus on content strategy before implementing new technologies. The presentation will examine value of semantic markup for the enterprise and several non-traditional DITA projects. It also provides background on the presenter and their company which helps organizations improve information usability through content strategy, architecture, transformation and tools selection.

1. Full-on DITA strategies
beyond tech pubs
2015 DITA Summit – Information Development
World, San Jose, California

2. Presentation abstract
• DITA has the potential to add tremendous utility to high-value
content for the enterprise. Before embarking on a DITA
transformation project, organizations must first take a step back to
examine their requirements for utility, maintainability, and usability of
their content. This means not putting the technology cart before the
horse. This session will take a brief look back at exploratory work
conducted by the Business Documents Subcommittee of the DITA TC
and how tools and methods have evolved since. We will examine the
value of useful semantic markup and models for the enterprise and
talk about several DITA projects involving non-traditional users and
audiences.

3. About your presenter
• Rob Hanna, ECMs
• President of Precision Content Authoring
Solutions Inc. and a director of AIIM First
Canadian Chapter
• Expert in structured authoring and content
management practices and technology
• Instructor at the University of Toronto School
of Continuing Studies – Metadata and
Controlled Vocabularies
3

4. Who is Precision Content Authoring
Solutions Inc.?
• We help organizations make their information easier to use
• Our solutions consist of
• Content strategy
• Detailed information architecture
• Content lifecycle design and development
• Turn-key content transformation
• Tools selection and development
• Multi-channel publishing
• www.precisioncontent.com
©2015 Precision Content Authoring Solutions Inc.

6. Full-on DITA Strategies
• Look for problems in likely places
• Soft-peddle the technology and focus on the content
• Show the end-result as the “art of the possible”
• Look for Cloud or SaaS solutions for early prototyping – keep IT at bay
• Look to other less traditional outputs
• Keep pushing your solution upstream
• Think globally and act locally

7. STOP THE INSANITY!
Stop
throwing
more
technology
at your
content
problems!
Content problems
require
content solutions!

8. Importance of
Content Strategy
Before any technology is
considered, organizations must
first consider their content strategy
to fully understand what they need
and how they are going to get
there.
Several factors must be examined.
@2015PrecisionContentAuthoringSolutionsInc.

9. Do we have a problem that needs
solving?
• 5,900,000,000 google searches per
day (who did we ask these questions
to before Google?)
• 540,000 word in the English
language – 5 times more than in
Shakespeare’s time
• 90% of the world’s data has been
generated in the last 2 years
In the year … Human knowledge
doubled every…
1900 100 years
1945 25 years
2014 13 months
2020 12 hours
Did you know? Shift Happens 2014 Remix
– Youtube.com

10. Early days in structured authoring
• 1997 GML
• Documentation process long and
fraught with opportunities for
human error
• Parsed GML into Access
• Created taxonomies
• Integrated structured data
• Output to HTML (.chm)

11. Enterprise Business Document
Subcommittee – OASIS DITA TC
• Examined authoring issues
• Content models
• Tore down templates
• Built up models from architypes
• Developed abstract layer

12. Language Arts
Language Arts for Personal Response
(LAFPR)
• To emotionally engage the
reader
• Techniques:
• narrative style
• varied vocabulary & sentence
structure
• withholding information
• Writer driven
• Meant to be READ
Language Arts for Information (LAFI)
• To convey information that
readers need to use
• Techniques:
• consistent modular structure
• concise, direct vocabulary
• use of graphics
• Reader driven
• Meant to be USED

13. Ikea Instructions: LAFI

14. Ikea Instructions: LAFPR
• If novelist Michael Ondaatje wrote Ikea instructions ….
“The eel-shaped talisman squirms inside the raspy recycled box. A
series of quarter turns – clock hands marking time – bonds back to
base. An alphabet of connections in English and French. A into groove
B. C slots into D. Chipboard credenza communicating Swedish
hegemony.”
• Author/parodist: Geoff Thomas
Globe & Mail, August 27, 2009

15. analyst brake market stapler seat
traders alternator investor calculators scissors
engine pedal dashboard pen backers
marker tape profit starter ruler
prospects
Thinking about Classification
How many words can you
memorize in 20 seconds?

16. analyst brake market stapler
dashboard pen backer marker
seat trader alternator investor
pedalcalculator scissors engine
tape profit starter ruler prospect
Thinking about Classification
1. Filter out all of the noise

17. analyst brake market stapler
dashboard pen
backer
marker
seat
trader
alternator
investor
pedalcalculator scissors engine
tapeprofit
starter
ruler prospect
Thinking about Classification
2. Break into smaller groupings

18. dashboardalternator pedal
brake seatengine starter
marker
staplerscissorstape
pen calculatorruler
analyst market backer
investor
traderprofitprospect
Thinking about Classification
3. Organize words by similarities

19. dashboardalternator pedal
brake seatengine starter
marker
staplerscissorstape
pen calculatorruler
analyst market backer
investor
traderprofitprospect
Stock market Office supplies
Car parts
Thinking about Classification
4. Classify and label groups

20. Thinking about Classification
Stock market Office supplies Car parts
analyst stapler brake
market calculator seat
trader scissors dashboard
investor pen engine
backer marker alternator
profit tape starter
prospect ruler pedal
How well did you do?

21. Thinking about Classification
Vegetables Computer parts Instruments
peas hard drive violin
endive sound card harp
carrots monitor piano
spinach mouse trumpet
celery processor cello
broccoli flash drive flute
tomato keyboard guitar
Now how many words can you
memorize in 20 seconds?

22. Structured building blocks of information

23. XML is Everywhere
XML defines meaningful data structures for documents
and data. It is a human-readable file format used to
power
• manufacturing assembly lines
• medical devices
• military applications, and
• many other things.
XML is the language of the Web. It enables smart
phones and web browsers.
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24. Intelligent Content
• Content that is
• not limited to one
• purpose
• technology, or
• output
• structurally rich and semantically aware, making it
• discoverable
• reusable
• reconfigurable, and
• adaptable.

25. A New Way of
Thinking about
Content
Precision Content™ is like software for the
brain
Programmed
Learning
Instructio
nal
Systems
Design
Human Factors
Engineering Documentati
on Writing
Research
Message
Design
Cognitive
Psychology

26. Meeting 2 sets of fundamental needs
The Human Brain
Technology
Find
Understand
Use, and
Retain
Integrate
Search
Process, and
Reuse
Well-structured content helps

27. Excerpt from a medical reference...
• pN3 description only closely
mirrors descriptions for pN3a
+pN3b + pN3c
• Use of footnotes confusing
• “Clinically detected” and “Not
clinically detected” are not exact
opposites, and
• Inconsistent enumeration of lymph
nodes

28. Same content after Precision Content™
• 44.2% reduction in word count
• 20% reduction in passive voice
• 18.4% increase in Flesch Reading Ease
score
• 30% increase in white space
• Elimination of footnotes, and
• Addition of labels and visual elements

29. Information typing and classification
• The cornerstone of the methodology is based on correctly identifying,
typing, and labelling blocks of content that comprise a topic
• Each information type has its own rules and semantics for authoring,
labelling, and presentation.
• Precision Content consists of 5 distinct information types including
• Reference
• Principle
• Concept
• Task, and
• Process.

30. Adapted DITA topic types and
structures
• Concept, task, and reference are simplified but essentially the same
• All topics are authored using blocks and titles
• New sub-blocks introduced
• Each block is assigned an information type

31. New Precision Content™ topic types
Process
• Specialized from Task
• Introduces
• Stages
• Actors, and
• Actions
Principle
• Specialized from Topic
• Introduces
• Principle Statement
• Applicability
• Outcome, and
• Resolution

32. Information
Types
Reference
Principle
Task
Process
Concept
“We will be flying at
an altitude of
60,000 feet.”
“Always put on your
oxygen mask before
assisting other
passengers.”
“To open the
emergency exit,
look out the
window, pull the
lever, and push out
the exit door.”
“In the event of loss
of cabin pressure,
an oxygen mask will
drop from the
overhead
compartment.”
“We are a member
of the Star Alliance
group of airlines.”
Flight safety briefing

33. Architectural
modularity of
Precision Content™ Client Specilization
Modules
Precision Content™
Modules
OASIS DITA Domains
OASIS DITA 1.2 Modules
Our solution can be implemented at varying
levels of architectural precision
Each layer represents greater consistency
and guidance for authors

34. DITA constraints
Using DITA’s standard constraint mechanism,
Precision Content™
• eliminates 77 elements from the base
specification
• eliminates elements unnecessary
domains
• simplifies element structures, and
• introduces controlled vocabularies for
element attributes.

35. Where?
Who? What?
How?
Why?
What is the Enterprise Content Metamodel?
• first published in
the 2005 STC
conference
proceedings
• describes the
relationships of
information
within the
information
ecosystem
Role
Ability
Objective
Event
Process Task
Concept
Reference
Principle
Design
Requirement
PastPresentFuture
When?

36. Questions?
Rob Hanna, ECMs
+1 (289) 290-4337
www.linkedin.com/in/singlesourceror
rob@precisioncontent.com