Structured Content and Personalization

Presented by:- Su-Laine Yeo, Solutions Consultant, JustSystems- Chip Gettinger, VP XML Solutions, SDL- Tom Smith, Product Marketing Executive, SDL

Our Presenters Today

Tom SmithProduct Marketing ExecutiveSDL Language Technologies

Su-Laine YeoSolutions Consultant

Chip Gettinger VP XML Solutions

SDL Structured Content Technologies

Agenda

Business Drivers to Structured Content & Personalization

Structured Authoring for Personalization

Ensuring Consistent, High Quality & Global Ready Content

Managing Structured Content for Personalization

Q&A

Agenda

Business Drivers to Structured Content & Personalization

Structured Authoring for Personalization

Ensuring Consistent, High Quality & Global Ready Content

Managing Structured Content for Personalization

Q&A

Changing Customer Expectations for Technical Content

Higher levels of Internet use Purchase and fact find more

often over the Web Expect Customers to search

Google & YouTube for technical support

Want answers on Smartphone Want videos and interactive live

content Show me just the information I

need - when I need it

Some Key Facts

• Some companies report that customers buy more than 80% of their products without touching it

• An enterprise software company reports that 18% of their customers want technical support on their Smartphone

• Companies are reporting that customers are expecting more highly graphic and interactive documentation

What’s the Difference Between Delivery to the Web and Personalized Content

Personalized ContentRich content

Delivery to the web Flattened content

VS

Drivers to New Trends

•Faster Product Lifecycle Changes•Agile - Iterative Development•Solutions Oriented •More Sensitivity to Customer Profiles•Distributed Teams•Outsourcing•Headcount Constraints•“SimShip” (Simultaneous Launch)

•Want Information via the Web, Search•Growing Expectation of Bite-Size Topics •“What I Need When I Need It”•Increased Language Expectations•Community Feedback•Targeted Tailored Information•Solutions Oriented •Impatient •Consistency in Support & Documentation

Added Pressures on Information Developers

Changing Expectations in Content Consumers

Drivers to New Trends

Added Pressures on Information Developers

Move to XML structured content / DITA

Changing Expectations in Content Consumers

Move to dynamic publishing for

technical publications

Applications and ContentTargeted for Personalization

Analyst ObservationMass personalization trends in product development are leading to more product configurations and more customized products. Rather than attempt to create 'catch-all' documentation to match all of these con-figurations, many companies are trying to apply this concept to product documentation as well.

Aberdeen Group

Barriers to PersonalizedCustomer Experience

Managing Technical Content Today

Content is locked into books and can’t be easily shared because of tool sets

Technical content written and published multiple times because it can’t be shared

Companies are creating and publishing content within multiple silos

Customers have out of date and conflicting information on the Web

Customers can’t find the relevant information on the Web or in a PDF

Some Key Facts• Kinetic Concepts (Life Sciences) found that manuals

were out of date as soon as customers purchased the product

• McAfee customers are finding technical information in too many different locations and it is not consistent

• Bentley Systems is being asked by customers for more interactive customer documentation

Agenda

Business Drivers to Structured Content & Personalization

Structured Authoring for Personalization

Ensuring Consistent, High Quality & Global Ready Content

Managing Structured Content for Personalization

Q&A

12

Structured Authoring for Personalization

Traditional vs. personalized publishing Example: Producing variations of a document for different regions More examples Planning for personalization

13

“Traditional” Publishing

In a traditional environment, authors are concerned with creating beautiful output:

OutputAuthoring

tool

14

Publishing with XML

In a structured authoring environment, authors are concerned with creating valid content (which serves as input):

Authoring tool

XML markup

OutputPublishing system

Style sheets

15

Publishing with XML

The style sheets are really part of the publishing environment

Authoring tool

XML markup

Output

Publishing system

Style sheets

16

OutputOutputOutputOutput

Personalization with XML

Publishing system can produce multiple outputs from the same XML markup

Authoring tool

XML markup

Publishing system

Style sheets

Output

How do we personalize?

17

One Way to Personalize: Conditional Text

Suppose you need different versions of a document for different audiences:

An employee handbook for managers and a slightly different one for non-managers

Maintenance manuals for various models of a vehicle Policies and procedures that vary by state

18

Example: Policy that Varies by State

“In most cases, the renter is the only authorized operator of the vehicle without the express written permission of the rental car company. For rentals within the states of California, New York, and Nevada the renter’s legal spouse is considered an Authorized Operator, and with permission from the renter, may operate the vehicle. With the exception of the State of Utah in the extent of an emergency situation, no other persons are allowed to operate the vehicle unless such persons are properly qualified, have signed an Additional Authorized Operator form and appear at the time of rental.”

19

What is conditional text?

Put content for all audiences in one set of files and mark up the content to indicate which parts are for which audience

20

Conditional text in XMetaL

21

Marking Text as Conditional

22

Deliver Exactly What the Reader Needs

23

Final publications

Hawaii-only manual:“The renter is the only authorized operator of the vehicle without the express written permission of the rental car company. No other persons are allowed to operate the vehicle unless such persons are properly qualified, have signed an Additional Authorized Operator form and appear at the time of rental.”

California-only manual: “The renter and his or her legal spouse are the only persons authorized to operate the vehicle without the express written permission of the rental car company. No other persons are allowed to operate the vehicle unless such persons are properly qualified, have signed an Additional Authorized Operator form and appear at the time of rental.”

24

Personalization: Metadata is the Key

Conditional text is an example of using metadata

Metadata is stored within the content Metadata determines relevancy of the

content for each deliverable Publishing system matches metadata

against personal data

25

Personalized Deliverables

A_Document Your_Document (Hawaii)

Your_Document (California)

Audience=“Hawaii”

Audience=“California”

Metadata

26

DITA for Personalization: More Examples

Break content into topics and deliver only the topics that the reader needs. For example: air conditioning as an optional feature in a car advanced information for support staff vs. day-to-day information for most

readers

Swap out small pieces of content using content references: brand names, product names locale-specific terminology brand-specific terminology legal boilerplate that varies by region or by contract

27

DITA Topics and Maps

Topics are standalone, reusable Maps organize topics into a coherent set Maps yield different deliverables and formats

28

DITA Content References

“The State of _______requires that…”

“Hawaii”

“The State of Hawaii requires that…”

1. Put placeholders in your document

2. Put what should go into the placeholder slot in a separate document

3. Publish with the placeholder filled in

29

Planning for Personalization

Set up an implementation team Analyze your content Plan your metadata model Configure your tools Train your authors and users

Agenda

Business Drivers to Structured Content & Personalization

Structured Authoring for Personalization

Ensuring Consistent, High Quality & Global Ready Content

Managing Structured Content for Personalization

Q&A

What’s Driving Global Business?

Gilbane Group, Multilingual Product Communications, 2009

33%

20%9%

9%

12%

17%

Global customer satisfactionRevenues for emerging geographiesImproved global/product brand managementTime to market/simship

Revenues for established geographiesNew product lines for specific market

Research into the Market Today

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

In one location Geographically dispersed

%

2006 2008

Are your authors in one location or are they geographically dispersed?

Outsourcing and off-shoring of R&D means technical communicators are dispersed worldwide

The Importance of Global Consistency

“New products need to be launched simultaneously across all markets… Our quality and consistency were suffering, leading to poor communications with customers and potentially damaging the Philips brand.”Luuk de Jager, Global Content Management Senior Manager, Philips

Pressures on Documentation

Agile Development

Multiple Content Formats

Head of Documentation

Heads are squeezed so much that clarity, quality and consistency of message suffers

Many Ways to Write the Same Thing

WARNING: Switch power off only when the fan has stopped

WARNING: Switch power off once the fan has stopped

WARNING: Disconnect power only when the fan has stopped

WARNING: Never switch the power off until the fan has stopped

WARNING: Do not power down until the fan has stopped

WARNING: Do not power down before the fan has stopped

WARNING: You must wait until the fan has stopped before switching off the power

WARNING: Wait until the fan has stopped running before switching off the power

WARNING: Do not disconnect power if fan is running

WARNING: Fan must be stopped before disconnecting power

Counter-productive, inconsistent, expensive to translate. A need for sentence-level reuse

Global Writing Style and Standards

Without global writing styles and standards, the quality of content suffers

MachineTranslation

HumanTranslation

Clarity and Ambiguity

Future Tense

Passive Voice

Omission of determiners

Consistency in Terminology

Brand

Customer Satisfaction

Quality & Clarity

Time & Cost to Fix

Challenges for Technical Communication Teams

How do we maintain consistency and quality globally?

How do we use a common vocabulary and maintain branding?

How do we author efficiently and control translation costs?

Terminology Management

Global Style Guide

Reuse at sentence level

Global Authoring Management

Create high-quality content that is cheap to translate, global-ready, consistent and clear

What Benefits do I get from Global Authoring?

Achieve time-to-market deadlines for product content

Actively reduce translation costs when content is created

Maintain quality and standards globally

Reduce editing and review time

Train technical communicators to adhere to yourcorporate style

Customer Profile – VMware

$2b annual revenuesHeadquarters in Palo

Alto, California 150,000 customers

and 22,000 partners Virtualization

software

Profile

Move to DITA and structured authoringReduce localization

costs Improve style and

quality worldwideReduce time-to-

market Streamline authoring

and editing

Executive Mandate

Significant productivity improvement for authors and editorsUsed SDL Global AMS

as a training tool for new writersHelped Technical

Editing team develop a global style guide for VMware

Results

Agenda

Business Drivers to Structured Content & Personalization

Structured Authoring for Personalization

Ensuring Consistent, High Quality & Global Ready Content

Managing Structured Content for Personalization

Q&A

Publishing Solution Evolution

1990 Mid 1990’s

IncreasingAutomation

STAGE 4 Next Gen Publishing

Desktop Tools – Content and Presentation CombinedDocument /Section BasedUnstructured, Format MarkupManaged on File System

STAGE 1 – Desktop Publishing

STAGE 3 Integrated Publishing

Publishing Solution Evolution

2000’s

WYSIWYG Focus

Impact of XML

Impact of Specific Standards(DITA, S1000D)

STAGE 2-Structured ContentMove to XML (In-House DTD’s)Separation of Style From Content (non-XML rendering)Content Components Versus DocumentsPrint/Help/Web Multi -Channels

Prescriptive Standards (DITA/S1000D)Automated publishing with Native XML Support (XPP/DITA Open Toolkit, XSL-FO)End to End Focus –Authoring, Publishing, Translation, Engineering, Training

Interactive Publishing PlatformsXML Database PoweredMetadata Rich, Multi-languageFilter/Render on the FlyClosed Loop – Feedback on Content –Integrates with Other Systems

Multiple Touch Points, too Many Sources of Information

Shift To DITA Makes Possible Transformation of Personalized Content

Content locked in context Information can’t easily appear in multiple context

and can’t be tailored readily to audience High costs of formatting Content gets out of synch and is difficult to

refresh Customers can’t find what they need

XML Topic Methodology Content can be reshuffled for deliverable Same content can live in multiple outputs Content can be delivered easily as web pages

to consume Metadata and conditions can allow content to

be tailored on the fly Content can be easily refreshed

Traditional Book Methodology XML and Dynamic Publishing Methodology

VariationsOf Deliverables

Paradigm of Topics and Managing Personalization

Market SegmentsVariations in Customer

Profiles

Product Variations

Customer Experience Benefits

“Live” Content Flattened ContentDynamic presentation via Web Browser PDF, HTMLOn-the-fly filtering presents users with applicable content from a single sourceof content

Contents set at delivery time. Content contains all product configurations or multiple deliverables are created

Application presents applicable content based on user configurations

User must find applicable content

Incremental updates for individual topics any time, with tracking

Full content set updated at scheduled times

Automatic audit trails track user interaction, feedback forms collect info

Little or no feedback from users

Content can be bookmarked and annotated, and these are maintained during incremental updates

No ability for users to annotate content and maintain annotations

Adopters of Joint Solution

Questions?????

Please type your questions in the Q&A console on your computer

Learn More…

Download case studies, whitepapers and product briefs JustSystems Knowledge Center:

http://na.justsystems.com/KnowledgeCenter SDL Knowledge Center: www.sdl.com/knowledgecenter

Contact Us Su-Laine Yeo, JustSystems: su-laine.yeo@justsystems.com Chip Gettinger, SDL: cgettinger@sdl.com Tom Smith, SDL Language Technologies: tsmith@sdl.com

@Thomas_Smithy