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Subject: RE: [dita-machine-industry] Product life-cycle table - generic remark


Title: RE: [dita-machine-industry] Product life-cycle table - generic remark

I meant I cannot agree MORE sorry. To quick typing ….

 

/Keld

 

From: Jonatan Lundin [mailto:Jonatan.Lundin@citec.com]
Sent: 19. januar 2010 16:32
To: Keld Jellesen; jang@jang.nl; dita-machine-industry@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [dita-machine-industry] Product life-cycle table - generic remark

 

My comments below

 

***********************

Jonatan Lundin

Information Architect

+46 (0)21 440 11 11

Citec Information, Sweden

 


From: Keld Jellesen [mailto:keld.jellesen@advice2u.dk]
Sent: Tue 1/19/2010 5:01 PM
To: jang@jang.nl; dita-machine-industry@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [dita-machine-industry] Product life-cycle table - generic remark

See my comments below

> -----Original Message-----
> From: jang@jang.nl [mailto:jang@jang.nl]
> Sent: 19. januar 2010 14:26
> To: dita-machine-industry@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: [dita-machine-industry] Product life-cycle table - generic
> remark
>
> I am sending this before today's meeting so that people can think about
> it and be prepared for the discussion.
>
> I think we are putting too much energy into defining all kinds of
> DOCUMENT TYPES, where we should be concentrating on INFORMATION TYPES
> and the elements required to express those information types in
> whatever document the user might think of. DITA is about reusability
> and about small pieces of content that can be reused virtually
> anywhere. DITA is NOT about documents, although these CAN be made with
> DITA components.
[KJE:] I cannot agree. In reality we don't talk about documents, manuals, etc. We shall talk about information objects. Documents and manuals are only container on how we tend to distribute contents to the end-user so it make sense to him/her. Another distribution term could also be cards for instance for jobcards which is used in aviation, but a jobcard is something combined from many sources.

(JL): I agree that it is better to focus on information types than document types. In general the purpose of the table is not clear; to me we are making the table to identify what types of information the machine industry spec shall support and if the existing in DITA 1.2 are enough of not. To identify the type of information needed for a *typical* machine product you could *simulate* an information analysis; this means to take the life cycle phases, the product components that constitutes the machine, the mandatory/optional task, the users, the context etc into consideration. To reduce the table to two columns was also discussed in meeting 22th dec. In general DITA does not stipulate how to identify what (type) information is needed and in which order that information shall be organized. A method, is to me, is something the technical communication community is lacking.

Thus we should try to think of a *typical* machine product and identify the *typical* tasks (uses cases as you say) that the user must/shall/can do and then the information types (instanciated as information topics in the deliverable) needed to support the user in doing the task in the different life cycles. I favor using hierarchical task analysis (HTA) as the way of identifying the user tasks. This means that the table could have a column with the life cycles (as today), a column with the tasks for the *typical* machine product and a column with information types supporting the user in doing the task. Then a last column could be the case where the different types of information modules (of a specific type) that goes into which documents are stated.

To find a *typical* machine product is not easy...

>
> The danger in concentrating on documents and all kinds of manual types
> too much is that we define too many elements for too many potential
> types of use cases. I would like us to concentrate on information types
> and define the required types in such a way that users can apply them
> in as many different ways as they can think of. I am very much in favor
> of the minimalism that was once the basis for DITA.
[KJE:] YES
>
> Against this background, I would remove some columns from the table and
> rename others. The focus should be on the info type that is required in
> each life cycle stage, so I would rename Main Information to Info Types
> and simply list the types that will be needed in each cycle. If types
> appear in more than one cycle, that is not a problem. We should try to
> name them the same if possible.
>
> The second column could be named "Use cases" and list possible
> documents that will be produced in the life cycle stage. A third column
> may be used for Comments.
>
> This table is just a way to collect info types that are required. Once
> that work is done, we should create a new table that is called Info
> Types and lists the life cycles in which each info type will be used
> with some use cases (documents) and a lead. Having a lead per life
> cycle is OK for the collecting phase, but the current table is not a
> good starting point for actual proposals, as these should be about
> information types, not about final documents.
>
> I hope everyone will have a few minutes to think about this before we
> start the meeting. I will propose to put this on the agenda for today.
> If that does not work out, I will propose to put it on the agenda of
> the next meeting. I think it is an important philosophical discussion
> we must have before embarking on actual 1.3 proposals definitions.
[KJE:] I need to think about this in more Detail but the overall idea sounds right...

/Keld
>
> See (hear) you all soon
>
> Jang


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