The Start-to-Finish, Best-Practice Guide to Implementing and Using DITA

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is today's most powerful toolbox for constructing information. By implementing DITA, organizations can gain more value from their technical documentation than ever before. Now, three DITA pioneers offer the first complete roadmap for successful DITA adoption, implementation, and usage.

Drawing on years of experience helping large organizations adopt DITA, the authors answer crucial questions the "official" DITA documents ignore, including: Where do you start? What should you know up front? What are the pitfalls in implementing DITA? How can you avoid those pitfalls?

The authors begin with topic-based writing, presenting proven best practices for developing effective topics and short descriptions. Next, they address content architecture, including how best to set up and implement DITA maps, linking strategies, metadata, conditional processing, and content reuse. Finally, they offer "in the trenches" solutions for ensuring quality implementations, including guidance on content conversion.

Coverage includes:

• Knowing how and when to use each DITA element-and when not to
• Writing "minimalist," task-oriented information that quickly meets users' needs
• Creating effective task, concept, and reference topics for any product, technology, or service
• Writing effective short descriptions that work well in all contexts
• Structuring DITA maps to bind topics together and provide superior navigation
• Using links to create information webs that improve retrievability and navigation
• Gaining benefits from metadata without getting lost in complexity
• Using conditional processing to eliminate redundancy and rework
• Systematically promoting reuse to improve quality and reduce costs
• Planning, resourcing, and executing effective content conversion
• Improving quality by editing DITA content and XML markup

If you're a writer, editor, information architect, manager, or consultant who evaluates, deploys, or uses DITA, this book will guide you all the way to success.

Also see the other books in this IBM Press series:

• Developing Quality Technical Information: A Handbook for Writers and Editors
• The IBM Style Guide: Conventions for Writers and Editors

Laura Bellamy is an Information Architect at VMware, Inc. and a technical communications instructor at University of California Santa Cruz Extension. Laura has been a long-time DITA champion, working at IBM during the adoption and proliferation of DITA. Throughout her career, she has worked on many facets of DITA implementation and now dreams in XML.

Jenifer Schlotfeldt is a project leader, information developer, and technical leader at IBM and a technical communications instructor at the University of California Santa Cruz Extension. She has been authoring, testing, and teaching DITA since 2003. She has converted documentation to DITA, authored new content in DITA, contributed to new DITA specializations, and created many training materials for different facets of DITA authoring.

Acknowledgments xviii

About the Authors xx

Introduction 1

PART I: WRITING IN DITA 5

Chapter 1 Topic-Based Writing in DITA 7

Books, Topics, and Webs of Information 7

Advantages of Writing in Topics for Writing Teams 9

Writers Can Work More Productively 9

Writers Can Share Content with Other Writers 9

Writers Can Reuse Topics 10

Writers Can More Quickly Organize or Reorganize Content 10

Reviewers Can Review Small Groups of Topics Instead of Long Books 10

DITA Topic Types 10

Task Orientation 12

Task Analysis 13

Minimalist Writing 16

Know Your Audience 16

Remove Nonessential Content 16

Focus on User Goals, Not Product Functions 16

To Wrap Up 17

Topic-Based Writing Checklist 18

Task analysis form 19

Chapter 2 Task Topics 21

Separate Task Information from Conceptual or Reference Information 22

Write One Procedure per Topic 22

Create Subtasks to Organize Long Procedures 22

Task Components and DITA Elements 23

Titling the Task: