What is DITA?
We've talked about structured content in other videos, but the important thing to understand
is that structured content is content that conforms to a predetermined standard.
Content that conforms to a predetermined standard is intelligible for applications and systems.
Now, DITA is a unique kind of structured content.
DITA was designed specifically for optimizing the publishing of technical documentation.
We'll come back to that, but first, it's good to know *how* DITA is different.
Most systems organize and manage content as documents or pages.
These documents are written in a linear way.
The ideas within these documents intertwine and overlap.
DITA content is written AND organized differently.
DITA content is written as component parts, topics, which are arranged in maps, and ideally
stored in a Component Content Management System.
A component content management system lets you manage, organize, and publish content
at a component level instead of a document level.
This is a *massive* difference from most systems.
Typical content systems have documents filled with entangled ideas that are difficult to
separate.
But a DITA system uses topics and maps to build documents.
A topic is a chunk of content that:
Unlike the tangled document in a typical content system, each topic that contributes to the
document contains a distinct idea.
You can think of these topics like building blocks of larger documents.
With these building blocks, content strategists can construct documentation and easily re-use
or re-arrange their content.
- *Show close up building a tower with blocks and re-arranging quickly.*
There are three main kinds of topics.
1.
Concept 2.
Task 3.
Reference
DITA also allows the creation of specialized topics for unique industries and use cases,
but these three are the main ones.
First, **A Concept topic.**
**A Task Topic** provides the “How To” or "step by step" instruction for a certain
task.
Like I mentioned earlier, topics are intentionally kept concise and limited to self-contained
ideas or subjects.
This applies to task topics as well.
Let's use the example of assembly instructions for a unicycle.
Rather than putting all the assembly instructions in a single task topic, there would be a topic
for the seat assembly, the wheel attachment, the crank axle, the spokes, the...
You get the idea.
Remember this unicycle.
We’ll come back to why this is important
The third type of topic is a **Reference Topic.** The reference topic provides specifications
about the product.
Things like:
- product parts - environmental specifications
- commands - API information
- pretty much anything that would be represented within a table or bulleted list
All these types of topics are a terrific method of capturing ideas into succinct components
of content.
This is where maps become helpful.
You can think of a map as a... well… a map.
If you as a traveler, embark on a cross country road trip, you probably know about some of
the landmarks along the route.
But you need a map to give you the direction, the distance, the order of landmarks, and
the whole surrounding terrain.
A map gives purpose and order to a series of landmarks.
In the same way, a DITA map gives purpose and order to a pile of topics,
A DITA Map provides:
- Order and hierarchy - Navigation (like a table of contents)
- And Cross-topic links in the final deliverable
As content creators, we are, in a sense, cartographers and our readers are the travelers.
We create maps that guide the traveler in their journey of understanding.
A good map guides the traveler from point A to point B and provides all the relevant
information, in the correct sequence, between those points.
In the same way that a road map is essential to a successful road trip, a DITA map is essential
to a helpful, published document.
Remember at the beginning how I mentioned that DITA is specifically designed to optimize
the publishing of technical documents?
This is where that comes in to play.
DITA is different from other tech comm methods.
Rather than formatting content as you create it, DITA content is automatically formatted
when it's published.
And you can publish to as many outputs as you'd like, simultaneously.
Portal, PDF, Mobile app, Website...
With DITA, multi-channel publishing is as easy as the push of a button.
(Pushes a button)
If you'd like to learn more about multi-channel publishing, you can watch our video on the
topic.
But the advantages of DITA don't end there.
Remember our unicycle with all of it's unique parts?
The reason we use concise, self-contained topics is because DITA allows content re-use.
Content re-use is NOT copying and pasting.
When you reuse a topic, you are actually referencing an original, not replicating it.
If you have 10 Unicycles and they all use the exact same axle crank assembly instructions,
you can reuse that topic in all 10 documents.
Cool, but now let's say that your axle crank sourcing has changed and you are using a new
manufacturer.
Make your update to the original topic, and the update will populate in every document
you’ve reused that content.
And now that you've made the change, you probably have to re-publish your documentation.
No problem.
(pushes button)
**But why does this matter?**
We’ve talked about topics, maps, publishing, and reuse.
We've also alluded to how DITA is perfect for augmenting or automating you tough tasks.
But at the end of the day, the value of DITA comes down to scalability and control.
Content constructed in DITA, is built into a framework that enables your content to grow,
evolve, and meet your organization's needs.
With unstructured content created in help authoring tools, Wikis, or MS Word, the growth
of your organization means the exponential growth of your workload and complexity.
Every new market, every new language, every new product, every new publishing output adds
a significant amount of effort and headache.
With DITA, content scales and offers tremendous savings with each stage of company growth.
Topic reuse means that for every new product you reuse content effortlessly
New markets are a breeze with audience specific outputs
Translation memory means that you only translate a topic once no matter how often you reuse
it.
And publishing becomes a gratifying push of the button (pushes button) rather than a time
consuming headache.
For organizations ready to grow, DITA offers a better way to maximize the payoff of every
word written.
With DITA, your content is ready to deploy.