An Agile Review Process for Technical Documentation

Documentation teams need a fast and effective review process to move forward on their projects and deliver quality, timely content. Reviewers, may they be SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) or key organization authorities, are usually extremely busy and have limited time (or interest) to review documentation. Interesting dilemma, no?

Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Documentation>Agile>Workflow

A Day at the DITA CIDM Conference

I went to the Content Management Strategies/DITA North America 2008 conference (put on by CIDM), which took place in Santa Clara last week. While I went to support our co-founder's speech on DocBook versus DITA, I also used this opportunity to catch up with software vendors and single-source users. Here's my top #10 take-away list.

Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

DocBook and DITA Editors: Is Their Future Online?

Thanks to my Google News Alert service, I recently discovered some on-demand XML Editors supporing DITA. While Salesforce democratized software on-demand in the CRM market, I am still perplexed on the future of on-demand pure play software. So let's see first what makes on-demand software, also known as Saas (Software as a Service), so attractive nowadays. I see five compelling reasons.

Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Information Design>Software>DITA

DocBook for the Masses

Having new DocBook standards in place may do little to push adoption. An important factor in driving user adoption is the availability of software that implements the standard. It would be interesting to see whether big software companies would jump on the bandwagon...Unless the open-source community comes to the rescue!

Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Documentation>XML>DocBook

Single-Source Documentation: Docbook versus DITA

When it comes to documentation projects, primarily technical, medical, and scientific, using XML is a no-brainer. The heavy thinking comes when deciding which flavor of XML to use: DocBook or DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture). I have been a steadfast supporter of DocBook for over six years. I'd tried my hand at DITA and gave it up as a fad; lots of bells and whistles, but too complicated to integrate. And couldn't DocBook do everything DITA promised anyway?

Mulvihill, Teresa. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Documentation>Single Sourcing>XML

Single-Source from the Reader's Point of View

Documentation written for single-sourcing (topic based, like that found in DITA) has great potential for efficiency. Writing once and publishing in many publications (Developer Guides, User Guides, etc.) and many formats (pdf, html, HTMLHelp, etc.) turns into cost and time savings. However, these efficiencies can cause inefficiencies for the users. Many online help users complain they cannot find the information they need while using the search function. Readers are more likely to comprehend texts with a classical book architecture, an architecture which is often sacrificed in single sourced documents and online Help files. When texts are cohesive, readers are more likely to consider information to be clear, well organized and easy to follow. For comprehensibility, it is essential to have a manual review, even when composing is partially automated.

Mulvihill, Teresa. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Audience Analysis

Technical Writing: A Candidate for Outsourcing?

Nowadays, outsourcing seems to be a de facto approach in the IT industry. As a part of the software development process, it seems reasonable to consider technical writing as a candidate for outsourcing. Through this article, I propose to explore the pros, cons, risks, and opportunities for outsourcing your technical documentation.

Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Careers>Management>Outsourcing>Technical Writing

XML Documentation: The Missing Link (1)

Technical documentation is a prime beneficiary of XML technology, with standards such as DocBook and DITA. However, while XML revolutionized the way technical documentation is written, it did nothing to help documentation teams improve the collaboration process with the SMEs and other invested parties. In some cases, things got worse, with another layer of complexity added between the documentation team and the documentation stakeholders. Where is the missing link?

Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Documentation>Software>XML

XML Documentation: The Missing Link (2)

Sharing XML documents during the writing and review process is a missing link in the XML publication chain. While Office or PDF applications help, they also add another extra-layer of complexity and lose the 'XML awareness' of our initial document. That's where LiveTechDocs comes into play.

Talbot, Fabrice. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Documentation>Software>XML

XML Editors for Technical Documentation

Looking through my Programs folder, I see many programs I use to work with XML documentation. Which one is my favorite? Well, that depends on the size of my project, the size of my budget, and the file I am working on.

Mulvihill, Teresa. LiveTechDocs (2008). Articles>Documentation>Software>XML