Lava con2015 - The Emerging Model for Content Creation: Guided + Fluid Authoring for SMEs

THE EMERGING MODEL FOR CONTENT CREATION:GUIDED + FLUID DITA AUTHORING FOR SMEs

LES BURNHAM & PATRICK BAKER | STILO INTERNATIONAL

Copyright © Stilo International plc, 2015.

► Legacy content conversion

► 1Million+ pages converted to XML

► IMPORT to CCMS

| STILO INTERNATIONAL (LSE:STL)


CLIENT-FACING CONTENT IS EVERYTHING, FROM THE FIRST CLIENT CONTENT EXPERIENCE

Content needs to be reusedand repurposed

Content needs to be structured

| EXTENDING DITA BEYOND TECH DOCS


► More publishing channels

► Time to market – agile development, continuous integration, continuous delivery

► Traditional tech writers are becoming curators of content

► Occasional content contributors and SMEs need a walk-up and use authoring solution

| KEY DRIVERS FOR ENTERPRISE DITA ADOPTION


FREE-FORM

SME DITA

FORM-DRIVEN

| THE 4 CLASSIC MODELS OF CONTENT AUTHORING

STRUCTURE-DRIVEN

TEMPLATE-DRIVEN


Easy to use

DITA processible

Web-based

Low-cost

| THERE REMAINS A GAP TO FILL FOR SME DITA

AUTHORING TOOLS


“It has been successful (Word) because it does

what users want it to do. What we need is

something that meets their needs, and also

meets our needs (for structured authoring).

What that is, I have no idea”

JATS 2015 conference discussion


“DITA is XML, so any XML editor can be used to write DITA code, but that doesn’t mean every XML editor is best suited for the job of producing DITA.”

► Last count on DITAWriter website was 27


“ We have been running an SME pilot with (a leading XML editor)for the last 9 months…

Not one tool was OK out of the box… Even with customisation, we’re not sure it will work …

WHAT CUSTOMERS ARE EXPERIENCING…

There is a central limitation……we’re always wrestling withthe content structure”


“I like ToolA but ToolA is XHTML rather than XML based. So ToolA has no programmatic way of enforcing the structure, and perhaps even some part of the contents of a topic file.

Awareness Group… a recent post

ToolB is evidently an XML-based tool. I use ToolC rather than ToolB but I believe the essential distinction between those products and ToolA is the same. That is, the topic editor actively enforces compliance with an XML DTD or similar mechanism. This helps ensure that topics conform to a particular structure.

Compliance with a given structure must therefore be enforced editorially. Sometimes that's a good thing insofar as it can be less daunting to less technically experienced writers.

But writers new to XML authoring are sometimes confused or exasperated when the editor doesn't permit them to freely insert certain elements into a particular type of topic, et cetera.”


The best of all 4 classic models

GUIDED + FLUID AUTHORING

| THE EMERGING MODEL FOR SME DITA AUTHORING

► An easy to use, FAMILIAR and attractive web interface

► Unobtrusive GUIDANCE

► Free-flowing FLUID authoring

► Semantically rich, processiblecontent

► Very low-cost


CCMS

DITACustom XML

DITA Topic Creation & Editing► Browser-based HTML5 editing

► Server-based HTML to DITA conversion and round-tripping

► DITA smarts computed by the conversion server, allowing more freedom for the SME

► Comprehensive DITA configurability under-the-hood

► Simple integration with CCMS, file systems, web services…

| THE RIGHT ARCHITECTURE FOR FLUID DITA AUTHORING


► Two classes of users

► e.g. developers & engineers who make contributions to technical authors

► Thousands of users from all parts of the business, with no concept of DITA

► Multiple levels of authoring expertise

► Single-topic, multi-topic, conditional text…

| WHO ARE WE LOOKING TO SUPPORT?


Let’s talk turkey…

| GUIDED AUTHORING

Scenario: 3 people are asked to contribute a recipe for preparing a Thanksgivingturkey …


context, then result,then procedure, next step

► All make perfect sense

► But, only 1 matches DITA task model

► And lots of stuff was left out

► only one person mentioned a next step (carving the turkey)

► Nobody mentioned things to do before getting started(e.g. thawing the turkey)

| GUIDED AUTHORING

SCOTTMARIO LULU

result, then procedure context, then procedure,then result


What is the fundamental

challenge?

► The user doesn't know what is expected of them

| GUIDED AUTHORING


► Guidance panel, specially adapted for each document type

► Hover help for each part offered in the guidance panel

► Inline assistive text for empty parts in the editor

► All user interface controls provide hover help and/or tool tips

| GUIDED AUTHORING


| FLUID AUTHORING

Wrestling with contentstructure……(and winning)

► User-friendly XML authoring tools tryto hide the complexity of XML and be WYSIWYG

► But the structure keeps getting in the way!

(pssst… there’s a reason)


| FLUID AUTHORING

Wrestling with contentstructure…

Depending on the tool, author is confronted with content structure in different ways:

► Popups with element name choices whenever user hits ENTER

► Attribute sidebar with esotericcontents

► Non-local changes to contentwhen inserting things

► Poor copy and paste support


| FLUID AUTHORING


Fluid editing is not a big issue fornon-XML WYSIWYG editors, they arefairly fluid…

► That’s because the content authoredis pretty flat

► Not so with XML


| FLUID AUTHORING


What are the fundamental challenges?

► XML imposes structure – only certain things are allowed in certain spots

► XML structure is highly recursive (or nested)


Wrestling with contentstructure…For example…► An XML list can contain multiple paragraphs…

► and notes…

► which themselves may contain paragraphs…

► and further lists…

► and tables…

► which may contain more paragraphs…

► and lists…

► etc., etc., etc…

| FLUID AUTHORING


Flu

idit

y

Structure

MS Word

Typical XML Editor

But… this is where we want to be anyway!

Unfortunately, there is an inverse relationship between fluidity and structure.

| FLUID AUTHORING



► If the XML structure is too rigid for authoring … lose it

► Use a more relaxed structure that will permit fluid editing

► Convert to the rigid XML structure after

| FLUID AUTHORING

How to build a user-friendly XML authoring tool?

(AKA what’s the secret sauce)


… that is, a fluid XML authoring tool?



The right architecture for FLUID XML authoring

Conversion – a key part of the solution► Just let the SME provide the content

► Conversion will figure things out by leveraging visual cues & context

| FLUID AUTHORING

Wrestling with content structure…

CCMS

DITACustom XML


Challenges addressed!

►The user doesn’t know what is expected of them► Guided authoring provides the needed help

►XML imposes structure

► Fluid authoring dictates that the author not be encumbered by content structure

►XML structure is highly recursive (or nested)► Fluid authoring dictates that the creation of nested structures be

simple and intuitive

| THE 5TH MODEL FOR CONTENT AUTHORING

Wrestling with content structure…


► http://ckeditor.com/addons/plugins/allchoose from 300+ plug-ins for custom editing

e.g. Track Changes, Inline Comments, Equation editor,Math editor, YouTube embedding, Spellchecker, Find/Replace, Floating Tool-Bar, Google Docs viewer…

Leading HTML editor

Community driven

Supports 60+ languages

Fully customisable

9,000,000 + downloads

Compatible with all majorbrowsers

| LEVERAGING OPEN SOURCE TOOLS


| RELEASE SCHEDULE


► An easy to use, familiar andattractive web interface

► Unobtrusive GUIDANCE

► Free-flowing FLUID authoring experience

► No knowledge of DITA required

| THE EMERGING MODEL FOR SME DITA AUTHORING

A low-cost companiontool to XML editors

Technology

Lava con2015 - The Emerging Model for Content Creation: Guided + Fluid Authoring for SMEs