by Søren Weimann | Apr 22, 2020 | Blog
“Looks cool, but couldn’t we just stick to what we have?”“Being able to grab a piece of content like that would be nice, but I don’t have the time to learn this new tool.”“Yes, I’d like to be able to publish a white paper using parts of your updated documentation, but all these tags and attributes? I don’t know…” We have all heard these complaints. Since DITA XML became an open standard and DITA 1.0 was released in 2005, people have been trying to spread the use of modular and structured content beyond the traditional documentation department. Some have been successful, but many have been hitting a brick wall when they present XML templates and XML tools to Marketing and Development departments. Time and time again, I myself have presented the opportunity of sharing content, reusing topics, conrefing legal notes and filtering output for different target audiences. They all see the benefits, but more often than not, they take one step back when they see the tools, the interfaces and appearance of overwhelming complexity. Some rule it out entirely and some have a hard time finding the available resource to prioritize the change process. Is this really the case all over the world of DITA XML? Well, before I just assume that my experience has any bearing on the world in general, I tried to find out if other people are experiencing the same thing. So I conducted a survey including 80 companies. Three types of implementations answered the survey. There are those that just aim for implementing DITA XML into one department. There are those that try to...
by Søren Weimann | Mar 2, 2020 | Blog
I’ve seen it first hand in several companies I have worked for: Field agents or other colleagues that work closely with individual customers come to me in the documentation department and ask me to make sure that their standard product documentation is always up to date. And then, they want to add a little bit of special information for each customer. “Oh, and by the way. In the field agent office, we have this standard guide that is only for us internal specialists. Can you make sure that is always up to date as well? Then I only have to go to the configuration database and fill in the form with the customer specific configuration information – by hand.” My reply to these guys has always been pretty simple, and the reaction has always been the same: I say, “Sure, we can do that, and that customer specific configuration information… you don’t need to fill it in by hand. The system can do that for you. All you need to do is write your part in DITA XML.” They reply, “That sounds great! But that DITA XML part… I don’t know. I know it’s really powerful, but I spent most of my day with customers, I don’t have the time to learn to write XML documentation.” A few times we get to the point of agreeing that they should learn to write DITA XML… when we’ve had some breathing room. But we never get around to actually making it happen. Customers always come first for these guys – and they should! Making the Field Agent NOT change So, what...
