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March 2007	www.infomap.com	Vol. 15, No. 1

DITA, Topic-Based Authoring, and Information Mapping®: What Authors Need to Know

By Cynthia Whitty, Public Relations Specialist

Introduction
Why so much buzz about Darwin Information Typing Architecture, or DITA, at training and documentation conferences? Why is it gaining popularity among technical writers? And how can authors use DITA and Information Mapping together to create usable, reusable content? A frequent speaker at conferences throughout the country, Deborah Kenny, Vice President and General Manager of Learning Solutions at Information Mapping, Inc., answers these questions and others.

Topic-Based Authoring
According to Kenny, topic-based authoring is “… the process of systematically organizing content into independent units that contain the information users need to know on a single subject.”

Kenny explains that topic-based authoring was first developed by Information Mapping’s founder, Robert E. Horn, in the late 1960s, based on research and studies on the way people remember and learn complex information. Horn developed the Information Mapping method (The Method™) as a systematic way to teach people to develop topics or, as he called them, “Information Maps.” Kenny says that topics should usually contain between five and nine related ideas. They contain more than a traditional paragraph, but less than what would normally be contained in a section or chapter.

Writing information in topics has many benefits. It saves organizations time and money by increasing information reuse and making information easier to manage and maintain. A single topic can be used in many formats, such as print, Web, and Help and, because it is written in small, modular chunks, is easier to translate and customize. Topic-based authoring is usually based on clear standards for organizing information, which improves the effectiveness of the information and greatly increases consistency.

The Challenges Authors Face
Most authors are used to writing narratives that string paragraphs together in a specific context to form sections and chapters. They often do not have experience writing small pieces of stand-alone topic-level content that will work equally well for different audiences, different purposes, and different media. Authors who need to write reusable, modular content, struggle to

• agree to and comply with new standards
• learn complex authoring tools, and
• tag content effectively.

Moving to topic-oriented writing takes training and a new way of thinking.

Two Approaches: DITA and Information Mapping
Kenny describes two approaches that can help authors reuse topic-based content: DITA and Information Mapping.

The DITA Approach
DITA is a mark-up language and document architecture developed by IBM to meet the need for reuse, shorter development cycles, and cost savings. DITA was designed to be used for technical information, especially complex product documentation and is now being managed as an open source standard by a technical committee at the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), a nonprofit, international consortium.

DITA is based on the concepts of XML, DITA Topics, Minimalism, Information Types, DITA Maps, and Specialization and Inheritance.

XML
As an Extensible Markup Language (XML) standard, DITA provides a set of element tags, attribute tags, and architectural specifications that allow authors to describe the structure of their content in a consistent, format- and media-independent way.

DITA Topics
DITA embraces Information Mapping’s concept of the topic as the optimal unit of information for reuse. Topics are defined in DITA through XML element tags and related architectural guidelines that define what types of information can and cannot be included in a topic. The illustration shows the structure and element tags for a base topic as defined by DITA.

Minimalism
Minimalism is an instructional design theory proposed by John M. Carroll that suggests that people learning new software systems should be focused on completing real tasks, rather than reading unnecessary conceptual information. The theory says that this approach best-reflects how people naturally prefer to learn, and that users will learn more if they have an opportunity to explore the software and recover from their own mistakes. Minimalism is reflected in the DITA standard through the strong emphasis on creating tasks that are supported by and separate from concepts and reference information.

Information Types
DITA identifies the following three specialized “information types” which identify and provide rules for topics based on their purpose for the user.

DITA Maps
DITA Maps enable authors to create one or more tables of contents that connect and reference topics in different ways for different audiences, purposes, or outputs. The “Map” provides the links to the locations of the topics to be used for a specific purpose.

Specialization and Inheritance
DITA can be customized to a company’s needs by defining or extending specialized information types or element tags, using the existing ones as a base. New elements inherit the properties of their base elements. Because only the differences need to be described, it is relatively easy to create and define a DITA specialization for a new purpose.

Advantages and Limitations of DITA
By combing the concepts of topic-based authoring, minimalism, information-types, and XML, DITA provides a simplified standard for technical documentation that can be used across a wide range of organizations to facilitate the sharing and reuse of task-based content. However, DITA simply describes the structure of the content and requirements for tagging it. It does not provide authors with help determining how to author content in this new way, and, unless they use extensive specialization, authors are forced to stay within DITA’s very rigid and limited assumptions about how information should be developed and used.

Continued

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