Toward Content Quality

How do we know whether content is any good? This simple question does not have a simple answer. Yet, I think having a good answer would help us show our employers and clients why their content needs to improve and how their content compares to the competition’s.

Jones, Colleen. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Content Management>Quality>Assessment

Coding Horror: A Modest Proposal for the Copy and Paste School of Code Reuse

If you use copy and paste while you're coding, you're probably committing a design error. Instead of copying code, move it into its own routine. Future modifications will be easier because you will need to modify the code in only one location.

Atwood, Jeff. Coding Horror (2009). Articles>Content Management>Programming

How to Integrate FrameMaker 9 with a WebDAV-Based CMS

With FrameMaker 9 comes a new way to work with files on a CMS (Content Management Server) that supports HTTP/WebDAV protocol. WebDAV is a kind of extension over HTTP which allows user to write files on Web along with usual viewing. Multiple users can collaboratively edit and manage files hosted on the Web server. Since many of today’s CMS servers provide users with a WebDAV route to access and edit files, FrameMaker 9 can automate the collaborative tasks by providing direct ways to view and make changes to files on CMS systems.

Adobe (2009). Articles>Content Management>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Authoring Eclipse Help Using DITA

This page contains information about how to use DITA for authoring Eclipse Help.

Eclipsepedia (2007). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>DITA

Content Management System Pocket Guide - A Guide to Evaluating, Implementing and Deploying Content Management Systems  

Once you've built the business case for purchasing a CMS, this guide can serve as a 'field guide' for the evaluation, implementation and deployment process. It begins by analyzing the anatomy of a CMS project, going through the decide and buy, implement and integrate, manage and maintain and upgrade and enhance phases. As part of the first phase, this guide provides a very useful sample of a Request for Proposal (RFP) to help you evaluate content management vendors. The guide also underlines the importance of viewing content management as a process, not a product, and suggests working with a content management vendor who will become a core part of your Web site management team.

CrownPeak (2009). Articles>Content Management>Software

Write for Reuse

Users often see online content out of context and read it with different goals than you envisioned. While you can't predict all such goals, you can plan for multiple uses of your text.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2009). Articles>Content Management>Writing>Information Design

Editing Modular Documentation: Some Best Practices    

The authors have come up with eight guidelines and three concrete suggestions on best practices for editing modular documentation, including ensuring that all topics are standalone, that titles are unique and descriptive, and more.

Strimling, Yoel and Michelle Corbin. Intercom (2009). Articles>Content Management>Editing>Documentation

Hey Rocky – Watch Me Pull a CMS Out of My HAT    

When companies decide whether or not to adopt a CMS or continue using a HAT, there are many factors to consider. Perlin outlines elements of both CMSs and HATs that could help you determine which is best for your organization.

Perlin, Neil E. Intercom (2009). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Software

Editing XML files on a WebDAV Server Using the Browser Plug-in

You can open and edit XML files stored on the WebDAV server using FrameMaker 9. When FrameMaker 9 is installed on your computer, the Edit with FrameMaker plug-in is added to the browser's toolbar and is listed as an option in the edit menu for XML files.

Adobe (2009). Articles>Content Management>XML>Adobe FrameMaker

Sitting on the Fence: Why I Sometimes Choose not to use Plone in Favour of Drupal or Wordpress

As an experienced Plone front end developer, people are often surprised when I often decide not to use Plone, in favour of something like Drupal or Wordpress. I thought it would be useful to explain why and how I make this decision. I know some of these points won’t be popular in the Plone community, but they are based on experience, and think this blog post will be useful to people deciding whether to use it or not.

Hurst, Rick. RickHurst.co.uk (2009). Articles>Content Management>Software>Plone

Wiki Myths, Wiki Reality

Although wikis have gained substantially in popularity since they first appeared some ten years ago, many enterprises still begin their wiki projects with unrealistic expectations.

Jespersen, Dorthe R. CMS Watch (2009). Articles>Content Management>Wikis>Content Strategy

Why Content Strategy Is the Key to Marketing

I had the pleasure of meeting Tom Hoehn from Kodak at Online Marketing Summit - DC last week. Tom has a really cool job at Kodak, where he is director of brand communications and convergence media.

Pulizzi, Joe and Tom Hoehn. Junta42 (2009). Articles>Interviews>Content Management>Planning

Control and Community: A Case Study of Enterprise Wiki Usage

There are a wide variety of uses for Wikis and a level of interest in using them that’s matched by an extensive range of Wiki software. Wikis introduce to the Internet a collaborative model that not only allows, but explicitly encourages, broad and open participation. The idea that anyone can contribute reflects an assumption that both content quantity and quality will arise out of the ‘wisdom of the crowd.’

Clarke, Matthew C. Boxes and Arrows (2009). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>Wikis

Against Learning Management Systems

Learning Management Systems have dominated online education up until now, but must they be what we rely on in the future? Having found our way out of one box, must we immediately look for another? Can we imagine no other possibilities?

Gold, Matthew K. Lapland Chronicles, The (2009). Articles>Education>Content Management>Blogs

The Many Faces of Content Management: A Primer

None of the technologies mentioned so far support the production of content for purposes of producing technical documentation. Such a system is a specific type of content management that has specialized functions for technical communicators doing multi-channel publishing, yet it hasn't spun off its own specific acronym.

Bailie, Rahel Anne. STC San Diego (2006). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Technical Writing

The Content Strategy Land Rush

I’m keenly interested in getting a better handle on content strategy, but it seems to me there’s still much to work out, even among the thought leaders themselves. It’s an exciting time for content and people looking at content strategy as a field. If naysayers speak up, it can only be because content strategy is taking focus off their own game.

Wion, Destry. Wion (2009). Articles>Content Management>Management>Content Strategy

Wiki-fying Docs: Is Using Customer-Accessible Wikis for End-User Documentation Gaining Momentum?

While the effort to provide more interactivity and power to the end-user seems to suggest that we open up a wiki to allow them to add and edit content, the basic idea of a set of edited documentation is now challenged with a social network of participating customers, all of whom may now edit, add, and delete content. How social can you go? This article is an attempt to look at the process of evaluating the use of a wiki for end-user documentation, if such a thing can exist. Are the two types of customer content — wikis and end-user documentation — mutually exclusive?

Kent, Betsy and Bill Albing. KeyContent.org (2009). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>Wikis

Five Suggestions for a Successful CMS Migration

Migrating to a new system can be surprisingly difficult (some reasons). The following steps can help in your migration.

Hobbs, David. WelchmanPierpoint (2009). Articles>Content Management>Content Strategy

A Call to Action for Web Managers: Blow the Whistle

We still had a huge, unruly Web site. It just had different graphics, a better-named Web team and more people shoveling on content and applications. Finally, out of desperation, we decided to try a new-fangled thing called a Web content management system.

Welchman, Lisa. WelchmanPierpoint (2009). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>Case Studies

Architecting User Assistance Topics for Reuse: Case Examples in DITA

In this column, I’ll review what user assistance architects mean by reuse and what its benefits can be. I’ll then describe some different scenarios for reuse and offer guidelines that user assistance architects and information developers can follow. My examples show how DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) can be an effective reuse framework. But the principles I discuss go beyond DITA, and you can apply them to any structured information framework or toolset.

Hughes, Michael A. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>DITA

My Apache WebDAV/Windows Nightmare

The goal was to use Subversion (SVN) as a poor man's CMS, and take advantage of great PC-based editors like DreamWeaver (for HTML) and XMetaL (for DITA). Eventually, we could add pre-commit checks and utilities to give us some of the advanced functionality we'd really like--like link management and metadata change management--but in the meantime we could do everything manually to get by. All we had to do was install Subversion and enable the WebDAV interface in Apache. But many hurdles later, I'm exhausted from jumping over them. Every one requires me to look through 20 web pages in search of a solution, and each time I surmount one obstacle, it's only to find a new one standing in my way.

Sun Microsystems (2007). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>Case Studies

Daisy: WYSIWYG Wiki for PDF Books  

If you need the collaborative aspects of a Wiki combined with DITA's modular topics and publishing capabilities, then DAISY might just be the system you need--and it's free. DAISY provides WYSIWYG editing for Wiki pages that can be combined to publish books, either in a PDF or as a single HTML page.

Armstrong, Eric. Sun Microsystems (2008). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Wikis

The Value of Semantic Tags

So what's wrong with using <b>, <i>, and <tt>, anyway? What's so useful about identifying things as menu items, APIs, or filenames? Here's the list of reasons that surfaced at the recent 2008 DITA/CMS Conference. What are your thoughts?

Armstrong, Eric. Sun Microsystems (2008). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>Semantic

Finding Usability in Workplace Culture    

The authors give a detailed account of their assignment to create a content management system (CMS) for a large office and how paying close attention to workplace culture and behavior affected their design of an effective CMS.

McCarthy, Jacob E. and William Hart-Davidson. Intercom. Articles>Content Management>Usability>Ethnographies

The Medium is the Delivery Method

A question that technical communicators frequently ask about wikis is "How do I get the documentation out of a wiki?" A simple answer: "Don’t worry about it." Because the wiki is the delivery method.

Nesbitt, Scott. DMN Communications (2009). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>Wikis