The Power and Promise of DITA, Dynamic Publishing and Customer Engagement

Our Presenters

Howard Schwartz, Ph.D.SVP Content Technologies

Andrew ThomasDirector of Product Marketing

SDL Structured Content Technologies Team

Kris EberleinDITA Architect

Agenda TodayDITA: Structured Content and The FoundationDITA and Customer ExperienceBeyond Dynamic PublishingDITA 1.2 and implications for customer experienceDemo of Next Generation Customer Experience with DITA and SDL LiveContent

The SDL Vision

Your Organization

Structured Content Comes of Age

Suite of Structured Content Technologies

Leader in Component Content Management (DITA / S1000D)

Dynamic Publishing High End Print Publishing + 20 years of XML technologies

experience Headquarters in Wakefield, Mass/ Belgium Over 300 customers in 5 continents Global Partner network

SDL’s Suite of

Structured Content

Technologies

SDL Envisions the Transformation….

SDL Envisions the Death of TechnicalDocumentation As We Know It Today

Ushers in smart interactive product documentation

Major Transformation…

• There is a major transformation afoot in what previously was “Tech Docs” but should be thought of as “product content”

• The shift is analogous to what happened to persuasive content over the last 10 years

Major Transformation…

• It is on the radar of many product companies and many publishing companies

• This story should find a bigger voice in ECM

Next Generation product content

• Product content interactive, context-aware, compelling and available on multiple devices and via multiple channels.

• New type of application is going to have to manage this experience

The Missing Link

• This new type of application represents the missing link between the backend product content developed inside an organization and the interactive world of persuasive content.

• Product Content has its own lifecycle and customer facing requirements.

The Missing Link

•Build Product Content On The Fly•Respond to Customer Profiles• Interactive, Dynamic• Incremental Updates•Analytics beyond page hits to capture “content utility”

•Takes advantage of rich XML structure and metadata

•Roundtrips comments from community to authors

•Crowd Authoring Enabled•Technology Tried and Tested in

Military and Defense

Trends in Customer Expectations

Customer Expectations Are Changing With Regard to Technical Information

Higher levels of Internet usePurchase and fact find more often over the WebDownload docs before purchasingShow me just the information I need - when I need it (my product on my platform)Want answers on Smartphone Desire visual videos and interactive contentWant to see video not just text

But What Customers Experience

Customer Experience Impacts

Aberdeen’s research indicates that companies creating documentation that is automatically

customizable to various use-cases achieve a 39% increase in customer satisfaction scores and a

16% decrease in inquiries made to customer support organizations. In both cases, this represents

over twice the impact achieved by companies without this capability.

David Houlihan, Senior Research Associate, Product Content Management

Converging Trends

Converging Trends

Massive paradigm shift to adoption of XML and Dynamic Publishing

Content locked in contextInformation can’t easily appear in multiple context and can’t be tailored readily to audienceHigh costs of formattingContent gets out of synch and is difficult to refreshCustomers can’t find what they need

XML Topic MethodologyContent can be reshuffled for deliverableSame content can live in multiple outputsContent can be delivered easily as web pages to consumeMetadata and conditions can allow content to be tailored on the fly Content can be easily refreshed

Traditional Book Methodology Topic Based / DITA Methodology

Contracting Product Life Cycles

Research & Development

Market Life

PRDInternational

ReleaseEnglish Release Shelf Life

Trad

ition

al

Research & Development

Global Revenue & Market Capture Life

Mod

ular

writ

ing

LocalizationAuthor Review Publish

Author Review Publish Localize

Key:

VariationsOf Deliverables

Paradigm of Topics andDynamic Publishing

Market SegmentsVariations in Customer

Profiles

Product Variations

Interactive Customer Experience

Interactive Product Content

Evolution of Technical Information

DITA 1.2: History

DITA 1.0 released May 2005.

DITA 1.1 released August 2007. Improvements for book-oriented publishing:

bookmap Integration with non-DITA objects

DITA 1.2 approved 1 December 2010.

DITA 1.2: Big picture overview

Changes to architecture Keys and the @keyref attribute Extensions to the @conref attribute

New information types Machine-industry task General task

New elements to aid reuseNew specialization for learning & trainingTaxonomies (subject scheme classification)Glossary, acronym, and abbreviation supportConstraints

Overall … Increased power and flexibility.

Costs and benefits

Benefit #1: Increased reusability Can redirect links Can change content according to the context Can turn common terms into links, for example, to a definition of a term

(not covered in this Webinar)

Benefit #2: Increased simplicity for authors and architects Can use simpler syntax Can help avoid complex conditional processing required by DITA 1.1 Can avoid swapping out conref topics

Benefit #3: Increased possibility for more personalized deliverables

Cost: Increased complexity New challenges for link management, link and key verification,

management of variable content, and more …

Addressing in DITA

DITA 1.0 and DITA 1.1 used direct addressing

Objects (topics, maps, images, figures, whatever) were referenced by the @href attribute or the @conref attribute

Examples:

<link href=“oil.xml" />

<keyword conref=“reuse1.dita#id/garage"/>

DITA 1.2 still supports direct addressing – but it also supports indirect addressing using the @keyref and @conkeyref attributes.

DITA 1.2: Keys and the @keyrefattribute

An indirect addressing mechanism.

Keys are defined in DITA maps.

DITA elements refer to keys to reference content.

What is indirect addressing?

Something that humans resolve instinctively, automatically … based on context.Computers need explicit addresses; cannot understand when the context changes.

I am going to WORK.

She is going to SDL.

A layer of abstraction …

Key definition

Keys are defined in a DITA map; a key name is associated with a resourceExamples:

<keydef keys=“oil” href=“oil.dita” />

<keydef keys="carwash-image" href="image/carwash.jpg" format="jpg"/>

Addressing using the @keyref attribute

Once defined, keys can be referenced in topics or DITA maps.

Examples:

<link keyref=“oil />

<image keyref="carwash-image"/>

Use cases for keys

Redirecting a <link> or <xref> element To another DITA topic To a Web site or other external resource Removing a link entirely

Swapping out variable content, such as images or product names

Creating hyperlinks from keywords or terms

Redirecting a conref

Using keys to redirect a link: I of 3

Using keys to redirect a link: 2 of 3

Using keys to redirect a link: 3 of 3

Using keys to swap out an image

Product Content Maturity model

Ad Hoc AwareStructured

RepeatableManaged

Collaborative

Customer

Optimized

Awareness UnawareNo Buy In Aware Exec Buy IN Fully

Deployed Optimized

Content Model

UnstructuredContent Locked in ContextProblem

Beginning to structure Content for Product Categorizations

Fully StructuredDITA AdoptionStructured forMarket Segments

Structured Content moving into other Groups

Structured for Customer and PartnerPersonas

Process

Little Content SharingEach writer owns book

Collaboration Emerging

Collaborative Writing in PlaceHorizontalExpertise Emerges

Sharing to groups beyond Tech writing includingTraining and Learning, Support

Can pushinteractively to customers and partners

Tools

Desktop PublishingFrameMakerNo CCM

XML AuthoringFile System

XML Authoring Component ContentManagement

Web-based XML Contributors

Smart Interactive Dynamic Delivery

Str

uctu

red

Con

tent

Inf

rast

ruct

ure

Structured Content Tech Suite

WEB CMS

Content Quality Checking

Intelligent Product Content Multi-Channel Output

Print, WebHelp, CHM…

Enterprise Extensibility / SME/ Contributors

DITA S1000D

Foundation (Component Content Management)

Global Customer Engagement

A Vision of Smart Interactive Product Content

Demo of Smart Product Content

Thank You for Joining Us

SDL LiveContent 2011 Launch Webinar for Customers

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 10:00am Pacific/1:00pm EasternContact Mary Parsons at mparsons@sdl.com for a log-in

Next up in the Webinar Series…

“Publishing’s Quantum Leap: Going Live Online While Feeding Traditional Delivery Channels”Wednesday, June 15, 2011 8:00am Pacific/11:00am EasternDetails/Registration at www.sdl.com/en/xml/events