Discover the role of microcontent as a core component of structured topics. Presented by: Barry Saiff - Founder and CEO, Saiff Solutions, Inc. Rob Hanna - President, Precision Content Authoring Services

1. Scott Abel aka “The Content Wrangler”
Your Host
● Internationally recognized content strategist
● Helps organizations deliver the right content to the
right audience, anywhere, anytime, on any device
● Featured presenter at content industry events
● Serves on the faculty of the University of California,
Berkeley, School of Information.

2. Barry Saiff
Your Speaker
● 35 years in technical documentation
● Led content development teams at Symantec,
Oracle, IBM, and GE
● Founded Saiff Solutions in 2011
● Provides technical writing services to large
enterprises in Australia, Japan, Canada, US

3. Rob Hanna
Your Speaker
● Professional technical communicator
● Leading expert in structured XML authoring,
DITA and content management
● President & Co-Founder of Precision Content
Authoring Solutions.
● President of the STC Eastern Ontario Chapter.

4. Agenda
● How topic-based authoring makes a difference
● Limitations of prevalent topic-based
methodology
● How microcontent improves structured content
for standard applications
● How microcontent enables chatbots, voice
automation, and other applications
● Why and how user intent matters
● How do we get from topic-based to
microcontent (Precision Content approach)

5. Brief history of content
What goes around …
… eventually comes around
One-to-OneOne-to-Many
CONTENT 1.0
One-to-Many More
CONTENT 2.0
Many-to-Many
CONTENT 3.0
Reach
Many to Many
+ Machines IoT
CONTENT 4.0

6. Complexity of content grows bigger
Scroll Codex Document Topic Block FactPage

7. Units of content get smaller
Scroll Codex Document Topic Block FactPage

8. Volume of content grows unabated
1700 1900 2014 20201945
80% of this is Dark Data …
Inaccessible ROT
• R – redundant
• O – obsolete, or
• T – trivial

9. What is topic-based authoring?
“Topic-based authoring is a modular content creation approach…”
“A topic is a discrete piece of content that is about a specific subject, has
an identifiable purpose, and can stand alone…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic-based_authoring

10. How topic-based authoring makes a difference
By writing topics, vs. entire books, technical
writers can create content that is:
● Reusable, adaptable, and accessible
● Consistently structured, and therefore
predictable
● Easier to find, read, and automate
● Consumable by both humans and
technology

11. Opportunities for Topic-Based Authoring
● Speed to market
● Reduced maintenance effort
● Better opportunities for reuse
● Balancing workload
● Finer control over project management
● Opportunities for collaboration
● Clearer, more concise minimalist content

12. Book-based versus topic-based models
● Multiple authors per book
● Topics serve multiple products and audiences
● Content development is iterative
● Presentation layout can be template-driven
● Well suited for modular hardware/software
products with short lifecycle or long life span.
● One author per book
● Books serve a single product and audience
● Content development is linear
● Presentation layout requires manual work
● Well suited for highly technical or one-of-
a-kind products with a long development
cycle and/or short life span.
Book-based Topic-based

13. Limitations of prevalent topic-based methods
● Topic reuse can be quite limited.
● Reusing paragraphs or sentences can be cumbersome to maintain without a
consistent microcontent/chunking methodology.
● People want answers to their questions. For some questions, they don’t want a list
of links, or three pages to read. They want a sentence that answers the exact
question they asked.
● Without microcontent, only a limited number of questions can generally be
answered via an automated process.
● Topic-based authoring or DITA alone cannot fully support precise natural English
answers, whether via a chatbot, voice automation, or a query function.

14. Inescapable trends in technical communication
● Content becomes much more
precise & technical
● Content creation becomes much
more collaborative
● Content creation becomes one part
in a total system
● Content activities become much
more complex

15. Microcontent
Is content that is
● about one primary idea, fact, or concept
● easily scannable
● labelled for clear identification and
meaning, and
● appropriately written and formatted for use
anywhere and any time it is needed.
It’s not microcontent just because it’s small

16. How microcontent improves structured content
● It improves the quality of content in terms of:
○ Findability
○ Accessibility
○ Credibility
● Microcontent breaks apart information into
chunks, making it easier to retrieve, repurpose,
manage, and use. It creates a better experience
for users.

17. Polling Question #1
● Do you use DITA or another topic-based
architecture?
● Do you chunk topics into microcontent?
a) No, we use a book-based approach.
b) Yes, we use a topic-based approach, but not
microcontent.
c) Yes, we use a topic-based approach and
microcontent.
d) Other.

18. How microcontent enables new content channels
The Human Brain
Technology
Find
Understand
Use, and
Retain
Integrate
Search
Process, and
Reuse

19. Why and how user intent matters
● In creating structured content, you have to
consider the profile of your audience, how you
intend to deliver the content, and what kind of
experience you want your audience to have.
● What do you want the reader to do with this
information?
○ Understand it?
○ Use it in performing a task?

20. Making a cup of tea
2nd Person, present tense
3rd Person, present tense
1st Person, past tense
What is the …
Intended Reader
Response?
… to instruct you on how to make tea.
… to describe to you how tea is made.
… to engage you in a story about tea.

21. Precision Content® information types
● REFERENCE
○ DESCRIBES things the reader
needs to KNOW
● TASK
○ INSTRUCTS the reader on
HOW TO DO things
● CONCEPT
○ EXPLAINS things the reader
needs to UNDERSTAND
● PROCESS
○ DEMONSTRATES to the
reader how things WORK, and
● PRINCIPLE
○ ADVISES the reader about
what they need TO DO or
NOT DO and WHEN.

22. Mapping Human Memory Function
Procedural
Working
Semantic
Budson and Price, 2005, New
England Journal of Medicine

23. How do we get from topic-based to microcontent - The
Precision Content approach
The Three Laws of Precision Content
● Utility
● Maintainability
● Usability
Content solutions should be technology-neutral.

24. Topics and blocks
● Consider what happens if we
focuses writing at the block-
level within topics
● The short description supports
the title of the topic as a block
● Every block is an information
type supporting the topic
Task Topic
Task title
Task body
Context
Purpose
Prerequisites
Steps
Post-requisites
Result
Primary Block
Blocks
REFERENCE
PRINCIPLE
TASK
PRINCIPLE
REFERENCE

25. Microcontent as building blocks of information

26. Polling Question #2
What is your experience with chatbots or voice
automation?
a) We are developing or repurposing content for chatbots
or voice automation.
b) My company has started using chatbots or voice
automation, but my team is not yet working on that.
c) We are exploring the use of chatbots or voice
automation.
d) I am interested in learning more to get ahead of the
curve.
e) Other.

27. Polling Question #3
Would you like to discuss your content
challenges with us in a free consultation?
a) Yes, please contact me.
b) No, but I’d like more information about the services
of Saiff Solutions, Inc.
c) No, but I’d like more information about the services
of Precision Content Authoring Services.
d) Maybe later.
e) No thanks.

28. Q&A