making the move to information architecture

Alan HouserPrincipal Consultant and Trainer

Tel: 412.363.3481arh@groupwellesley.comwww.groupwellesley.com

Making the Move to Information Architecture

Group Wellesley, Inc.

What you will learn

• What is information architecture

• Why is information architecture important

• Approaches to information architecture

• Information architecture in DITA

What we will not discuss

• Complex terms that nobody understands

What is information architecture?

• “…Science of expressing a model or concept for information” (Wikipedia)

• All organizations use information architecture. Some more formally than others.

Why information architecture?

• Business requirements – time-to-market, reuse, efficiency in authoring, translation, publishing, content management.

• User requirements – usability, predictability, findability, consistency

Before information architecture

• Books and book-like structures

• Ad hoc mechanisms for defining and organizing content

• Little control over content lifecycle

After information architecture

• Topics with named types and consistent, predictable internal structure

• Formal ways to associate metadata (properties, classes) with topics

• Formal ways to define topic collections

• Formal ways to define relationships, structures, hierarchies among topics

Ad hoc versus formal information architecture

Ad hoc information architecture

Formal information architecture

Outline Task analysis

Section Topic

TOC Map file

Ad hoc types Formal types (task, concept, reference)

Hard-coded navigation Auto-generated navigation based on structures

Overview of DITA design

• Roots of DITA: minimalist approach

DITA goals

• Provide task-oriented documentation

• Provide navigation and accessibility mechanisms

• Minimize amount of content provided to support your product or service

• Maximize usability

• Maximize process efficiency

What is DITA?

Darwin Information Typing Architecture

• An architecture that supports authoring, managing, and publishing topic-oriented content.

Why DITA?

• Companies are looking for publishing solutions that facilitate information re-use, reduce time-to-market, improve management and maintainability, and provide the capability to deliver highly usable technical content.

DITA architecture

• Topics – typed, reusable units of information

• Specialization mechanism to create new topic types

• Maps define topic collections

• Content reuse at topic and fragment level

• Metadata-based content filtering

• Basic DITA information unit

• Should be stand-alone, usable out of context

• No formal restriction on topic length

• Generic "topic" type

• Specialized topic types: task, concept, reference

DITA Topic

Structure of a DITA Topic

<topic> <title/> <titlealts/> <shortdesc/> <prolog/> <body/> <related-links/></topic>

Structure of a DITA Task

<task> <title/> <titlealts/> <shortdesc/> <prolog/> <taskbody/> <related-links/></task>

Structure of a DITA Task (continued)

<taskbody> <prereq/> <context/> <steps> <step><cmd> </cmd></step> <step><cmd> </cmd></step> … </steps> <result/> <example/> <postreq/></taskbody>

• Define topic sequences, hierarchies, groups

• Define topic sets and structure for publishing

• Define topic sets for project management and authoring responsibility

• Define navigation structures

• Augment and override topic-level metadata

DITA Maps

<map title = "Using your Acme Cell Phone"> <topicref href="answer_call.xml"/> <topicref href="attach_battery.xml"/> <topicref href="change_case.xml"/> <topicref href="charge_battery.xml"/></map>

A basic DITA map file

Expressing topic hierarchies

• <topicref> elements can be nested to express topic hierarchies in navigation and output:

<topicref href = "maintaining_battery"> <topicref href = "charge_battery.xml"/> <topicref href = "attach_battery.xml"/> <topicref href = "detach_battery.xml"/> <topicref href = "replace_battery.xml"/></topicref>

Expressing headings within a map

• Use <topichead> to provide title for a group of <topicref> elements. Title is rendered in output.

<topichead navtitle="Maintaining your battery"> <topicref href="attach_battery.xml"/>

<topicref href="charge_battery.xml"/> <topicref href="detach_battery.xml"/>

<topicref href="replace_battery.xml"/></topichead>

Overriding topic headings within a map

• Use navtitle attribute to override topic titles for navigation. Must also set locktitle attribute to "yes".

<topichead navtitle="Battery"> <topicref href="charge_battery.xml"

navtitle="Charge" locktitle="yes"/> <topicref href="attach_battery.xml"

navtitle="Attach" locktitle="yes"/> <topicref href="detach_battery.xml"

navtitle="Detach" locktitle="yes"/></topichead>

Overriding topic-level metadata

• DITA 1.0 provides 4 attributes to support topic filtering: audience, platform, product, otherprops. These are typically set in the topic file, but can be set or overridden in the map file.

<topic audience="administrator"> … </topic>

<topicref href="troubleshooting.xml" audience="user" />

• DITA 1.1 allows you to specialize the props attribute to provide your own attribute "labels".

Sounds like a good idea. Let’s go!

Conventional approach to DITA migration

• Analyze legacy documents

• "Chunk" legacy content

• Assign topic types

• Rewrite content as necessary

• Convert content to markup

• Organize using DITA map files

A better approach

Task-based approach

• Perform task analysis

• Determine supporting concept and reference topics

• Create organizing structure: sequences, hierarchies, groups

• Pull topics from legacy documentation as needed

• Write to fill the holes

• Throw the rest (of your legacy content) away

Task analysis methodologies

• GOMS (Goals, Operators, Methods, Selection) and similar methodologies (Card, Moran, Newell)

• Card sorting

• Post-it notes

• Mind-mapping applications

Contact Us!

We hope you enjoyed this presentation. Please feel free to contact us:

Alan Houserarh@groupwellesley.com

Group Wellesley, Inc.933 Wellesley RoadPittsburgh, PA 15206USA412-363-3481www.groupwellesley.com