Copyright © Joe Gollner 2012

Beauty &

the BEAST:

Two Paths

to DITA

CMS / DITA North America 2012

Joe Gollner

Gnostyx Research Inc.

jag@gnostyx.com

The Path through the Dark Forest

The Happy Valley of DITA

Challenges DITA was born to solve

DITA in a Strange Land

Edge Cases where DITA might be a stretch

Walking towards the Light

Making the case for DITA Alignment

Taming the Specialization Beast

Bringing the benefits of DITA to new domains

The Happy Valley of DITA

Challenges DITA was

born to solve

End User Documentation

Instructive

Task-oriented

Conditional

Multi-channel

Addressing these needs in ways that can evolve

Specialization & process overrides for graceful extension

DITA as Belle – the Beauty

Totally into Documentation

A Heroine with a Touch of Idealism

Some saw in DITA an answer to all

documentation problems

DITA could be used

to model, author,

manage & deliver

all content

It sounds more fun

than it turns out to be…

DITA in a Strange Land

Some documentation

scenarios present

special challenges

Engineering specifications

Complex diagnostics

Research materials

What’s the problem?

The content doesn’t follow

many (or any) of the ideal

patterns for user materials

Verbose, nested, link rich &

overloaded with semantics

DITA: Tougher than It Looks

From the outset, DITA proved more scalable in

addressing advanced challenges than first expected

Still, It’s Nice to have Backup

It’s time to meet the Beast

A Current Case Study: A DITA Edge Case

Healthcare Information

Complex research material

Elaborate decision support scenarios

Overlapping disciplinary controls

Multiple data sources

Lifecycle traceability

Exploratory information products

Little (no) precedent for DITA

deployment for these problems

Numerous standards already exist in the Healthcare sector

Perhaps a different path beckons – into proprietary XML

Proprietary XML? A Digression

A phrase that has been

getting broad usage

Used to denigrate

non-DITA uses of XML

Phrase should be avoided

It is a contradiction

in terms

It downplays the real

benefits of using XML well

Walking Towards the Light

Making the Case for DITA Alignment

If alternative standards exist as starting points

• Why use DITA?

The currency of the phrase “proprietary XML” offers a clue

• The CM industry has been promoting DITA as a common path

• Vendors want to

consolidate the

requirements they

need to support

and understandably!

• So vendors have been

concentrating their

development efforts

on DITA

So DITA Ventures into Uncharted Territory

Applying DITA to

edge cases can be

a challenge

Modelling content

through specializations

complicates an already

complicated process

Prototyping solutions using

class attributes & processing

overrides complicates an already

complicated process

The Beast becomes unhappy

Getting to Know (and Love) the Beast

So what exactly do I mean by

the Beast?

It is an implementation strategy

• One that starts without DITA

• One that models content &

prototypes solutions using

Custom XML

One that seeks to establish & then exploit DITA Alignment

• Adopting DITA content models as “primitives”

• Applying the structural principles of DITA as far as possible

• Reusable components & assembly structures

• Setting the ground work for a later “reunion”

Why bother?

DITA has a specific center

of core capability

Corresponds with

a set of common

content activities

CM vendors are

providing ever

improving functionality

ProcessingVariety

DataVariety

Core DITACapability

The Natural Role of Specialization

Specialization is natural

When data patterns are

close to existing structures

to which they can be

easily associated

(aka specialization)

When the processing

overrides extend or

adapt existing behaviour

in a logical way

(aka overrides)

ProcessingVariety

DataVariety

Model Specialization & Processing Override Effort

DITA Being Stretched to the Limits

Edge Case Scenarios

Call for extensive specialization

& processing overrides

Encounter elevated costs

when stretching DITA

beyond its natural bounds

ProcessingVariety

DataVariety

Model Specialization & Processing Override Effort

The Bigger Concern: Time

Time is of the essence

Edge case projects need to

progress even faster than

other projects

Stretching DITA takes too

much time Level of Effort

Elap

sed

Tim

e R

equ

ired

The Beast Shows Itself

Custom XML leveraged to

accelerate modelling &

exploratory prototyping

Available industry standards

leveraged aggressively

ProcessingVariety

DataVariety

Specialized DITA Custom XMLStandard DITA

The Point: Accelerated Development

Modelling & Prototyping

benefit from:

Leveraging DITA

where the fit is natural

Leveraging custom

XML where new

ground must be

broken

The goal:

Achieve a sound operational solution as quickly as possible

Leverage DITA support where this offers benefits

Level of Effort

Elap

sed

Tim

e R

equ

ired Time

Savings

Converging Paths

Once an operational solution

has been established

Steps can be taken to

align the content models

with DITA

Retroactive specialization

Allows the content to be

managed & maintained using

standard DITA tools

ProcessingVariety

DataVariety

Heavily Specialized DITA

Specialized DITA Custom XMLStandard DITA Custom

processing

can remain

DITA and the Hidden Side of the Beast

DITA offers one

unexpected, but very

important, benefit in these

more extreme cases

DITA helps to introduce

document content to

teams with a data &

technology background

Very important where data

structures exist in

document contexts

The Beast needs to learn to be gentle

when handling document content,

which can be something quite new

for teams with a database &

transactional technology background

DITA has Lessons to Teach

DITA can be used

to introduce technical

teams to the ins & outs

of document content

DITA distills a set

of best practices in

handling content

Provides scaffolding for modelling efforts that mix

data structures with document content

A Happy Ending

Joe Gollner

Gnostyx Research Inc.

www.gnostyx.com

jag@gnostyx.com

The Content

Philosopher Blog

www.gollner.ca

And like most fairy tales, the Beast turns out to be

a wealthy aristocrat as well as being a kind-hearted hunk.

What more could you ask for?

Visual Credits:

http://disney.go.com/

beauty-and-the-beast/

Great Movie!

Gaston is the best!