Re: [dita-adoption-help] What's Impeding DITA Adoption

[ian balanza-davis <ibalanza_davis@yahoo.co.uk>]

Nail, head.

I think part of the problem is the definition of "Technical Communicators", something that seems to implicitly exclude subject matter experts (SMEs) and other contributors -- who in my experience are rarely if ever technical communicators.

On the whole, SMEs tend to write help information sporadically and the use of DITA requires an understanding of the structure as no tool hides it from the end user. So the more complex the implementation, the more this group has to relearn before they can write. I guess this is why there is a demand for Word-based editing; it has a familiarity of use that allows SMEs to concentrate on content rather than structure -- something that XML was supposed to solve.

(So there is one persona following on from the discussion - the SME who infrequently updates content. A group much larger than you might expect.)

In a huge generalization, from what I have seen, we in the TC community are inclined to implement DITA in a way that suits ourselves. Whether this is stepping from the simple topic to concept/task/topic or specialization for an obscure feature. The usual axiom at this point would be "just becuase you can does not mean you should." I have been asked on numerous occasions why different structures need to be used. and from the SME point of view it does complicate the  I just need paragraphs, bullets, lists tables and images idea. As a simple example, on transform there is no difference in most cases between <b> and <uicontrol>. Sure we gain semantic meaning from the source, but the reader sees bold. The SME sees bold and cannot see the value in <uicontrol> because they only want emphasis - bold - not something in source that tells them it is a user interface element.

For most of the authors I work with, DITA is simply another format like Word or Frame, and is treated in much the same way. Word/Frame heading styles in a single chapter have been replaced with subtopics in a single XML file. The next logical (and misunderstood) step is "topic-based, oh right that means one file = one topic."

What is missing is the understanding of topic-based authoring and information interaction. That is not something that DITA exclusively owns but is pushed very hard with DITA. All DITA does in this respect is provide a large number of mechanisms to make this approach easier. But because DITA=topic based, and topic based is misunderstood DITA is tarnished with that brush.

Bit or a ramble, but hopefully something of interest in there.

Ian

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From: Tony Self <tself@hyperwrite.com>
To: dita-adoption-help@lists.oasis-open.org
Sent: Thursday, 19 January 2012, 1:40
Subject: [dita-adoption-help] What's Impeding DITA Adoption

Greetings colleagues

Today I went to add a post to my very rarely updated Blog on DITA.xml.org,
but my own post on my own blog got blocked by the spam filter. Although the
post deals with DITA adoption generally (ie, not DITA for Help adoption
specifically), I thought I'd not waste the effort in writing the post by
sharing it here. It dovetails a little into our discussions with Neil Perlin
and Alan Houser at the last meeting.

There have been many discussions within OASIS DITA committees about
discovering (and removing) the impediments to DITA adoption. It's probably
fair to say that the discussions have discovered there are many roadblocks,
but so far haven't resulted in clear ways to remove them.

This morning I read a throught-provoking article entitled "Open Source
Needed to Save Democracy" (at
http://www.zdnet.com.au/open-source-needed-to-save-democracy-339329909.htm?o
cid=nl_TNB_19012012_fea_8) by Stilgherrian. Pondering the question of why
open source isn't as successful as it ought to be, the author quoted Bruce
Perens, of Open Source Definition, who believes many open-source developers
have an attitude problem.

"Let's face it; most of us don't even like users. We call them 'lusers'. We
make the software for ourselves and the other developers. Why should we like
them?"

I wonder whether one of the reasons that DITA is not as successful as it
deserves to be is that those of us on the TC might be making the standard
for ourselves, rather than for the users, technical communicators. One
common complaint from the users is that DITA is too complex. Maybe we can't
see that complexity because we don't believe it to be true?


Regards

Tony Self



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