Remember Macaulay Culkin? The child star of Home Alone peaked very early and, despite many attempts, never managed to make the same impact as an adult. Larry Kunz asks if a similar fate awaits DITA, the one-time golden child of the tech comms industry.
Larry says that last week another technical writer asserted that DITA has “jumped the shark.” “It’s not a new idea. I’ve heard other people say that DITA has already seen its best days, that it’s struggling to remain relevant in a world that’s passed it by. I was amused, I admit, because it was the first time I’d seen DITA compared to a TV show.”
What does the future hold for DITA?
Larry identifies four areas where DITA fits into the content creation lifecycle and also the benefits it offers technical writers.
- Content + Community — content comes from all over the enterprise, not just from the technical writing department, and from outside the enterprise (customers and end users) as well.
- Content + Structure— the next step is to organize & format this community-based content in usable way. DITA, based on XML, help tag content for the semantic Web.
- Content + Collaboration — DITA-wiki tools will make it practical for everyone to “contribute content… and for the content to be formatted in a consistent fashion according to the enterprise’s requirements.”
- Agile Software Development — DITA helps tech writers generate review drafts more easily as reviews are based on separate topics rather a single document.
Will DITA Become Adopted as a Standard?
Larry adds that “DITA is a standard. It can grow in whatever directions the community wants to take it.”
I have to admit, I’ve never got my teeth into DITA. It’s something I’ve read about but never had the opportunity to use. Why?
- Products - If DITA was developed by a company with a financial incentive (i.e. productized) to make it work, then there may be a greater adoption.
- Ownership - as it’s ‘just’ a standard, then no-one really owns it.
- Compelling reasons – the third is that I can’t see (and forgive my ignorance here!) a compelling reason for companies to adopt DITA. I can see the benefits but for a company to invest in training, tools etc there needs to be a strong business case – and with DITA, I don’t see it. Whereas with XML, I could see the business opportunities that it offered, which no doubt accelerated its adoption.
Industry Adoption
I asked Larry which companies have embraced DITA, for example, is it part of Adobe’s FrameMaker or Tech Comms suite?
Larry’s take on this is that “DITA will have greater adoption if it’s embraced by the software vendors. The good news is, this is already happening.”
FrameMaker has been DITA-compliant since version 8 and while Adobe might not have “embraced” DITA with a whole-hearted DITA-Frame integration, it’s at least shown a willingness to shake hands.
- Bluestream’s XDoc – DITA-compliant Content Management System
- Madcap –Blaze and Flare support DITA
- XMetal – DITA-based reviewing tool called Reviewer
Has DITA Jumped the Shark?
Last word to Larry: “the trend is clear. An increasing number of commercial vendors are seeing that there’s a market for DITA-compliant tools. And several of the tools are going way beyond simple DITA-compliance to full-blown integration with DITA.”
How do you use DITA?
Like I said, I haven’t used DITA on a live project.
- Where do you see its role in the technical writing community?
- What do we need to do to increase its adoption or raise its profile?
- What is the one thing it offers to technical writers that other tools don’t offer?
Let me know what you think. Please add your thoughts below and let’s get the ball rolling.
PS – What is shark jumping, anyway?
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
You say, “I can see the benefits but for a company to invest in training, tools etc there needs to be a strong business case – and with DITA, I don’t see it. Whereas with XML, I could see the business opportunities that it offered, which no doubt accelerated its adoption.” Uhh…you do realize that DITA is XML, right? All of the business opportunities available via XML are also available via DITA. The advantage of DITA, as a standard, over generic XML, is that you don't have to pay someone to develop processing instructions for turning your custom XML into usable output. The processing instructions are already there. To say that you see opportunities for XML that you don't see for DITA is like saying that your company didn't see the opportunties with Microsoft Word and so you developed your own in-house word processor. Take another look at DITA with the same open-mindedness with which you approach generic XML and see if you don't feel differently.
Hi Leigh,
Can I turn this around?
1. What is the main barrier to companies adopting/embracing DITA? e.g. Inertia, knowledge, case studies etc
2. Who has adopted DITA and/or made it a focal point of how they write technical documentation? What I mean is the tech docs dept decided to maximize DITA’s potential so they could produce documents faster, better etc.
3. How can we increase the adoption of DITA? Community, productize, evangelists? You work with DITA every day and see its benefits. But not everyone does; not all technical writers/tech docs depts have made the switch.
I ask this as while I see the merit in DITA (and yes, I know it’s XML, thank you!) most of my clients still use Microsoft Word and different flavors of Adobe FrameMaker. They’ve heard of DITA but are looking into it… and we all know what that means.
How do you suggest I approach this?
Ivan
You asked what companies are using DITA. IBM, Cisco and Solidworks come to mind immediately. There are others that escape me right now but I've also seen lots of other companies moving in the direction of DITA for many of the reasons Leigh mentioned.
A lot of the resistance to adoption comes down to inertia; what we do has worked for us for years, why change? As the impetus to do more with less increases, there will be more investigation of how to do it smarter than in the past and those companies will move also. Not only do you get all the benefits of XML, but most of the heavy lifting of transforms are done for you. You can even specialize the standard so you can match whatever content model feels most comfortable for your culture.
There is a large community of evangelists (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dita-users/) that grows almost daily. Newbies are supported by those who have more experience (Leigh is one of those folks) and information is shared freely. Like most open source efforts, there is lots of free help there for those who ask.
Yes, there are some who won't move towards it. DITA isn't for everyone but when you're looking at huge amounts of data, it deserves a good look.
Hi Julio,
Thanks for dropping by.
<resistance to adoption comes down to inertia; what we do has worked for us for years, why change?
That’s what I'm seeing too, especially in larger organizations.
There is also the risk that if you champion something, adopt it, and then it fails to deliver – you’ll get the flak.
Another problem, here in Europe anyway, is the lack of training technical writers with DITA and structured authoring skills.
So, if you do spend the money, you may struggle to find people who can hit the ground running.
Another reason, fwiw, why people often stay with Adobe FrameMaker rather than moving to Madcap and other tools.
Maybe it’s different State-side but in Europe, the critical mass of technical writers isn’t there – as far as I can see anyway.
Ivan
Please. Creating topic review drafts is no argument pro-DITA. Why not hand your reviewer the section/chapter with his/her name on it as per always?
Julio, an IBM team invented DITA, so it's no surprise that they use it. (A more important question: Does IBM use DITA today more or less than in the past?)
because pre-DITA many docs were not written using a topic-based writing structure
IBM is like a country. Different rules/processes in different regions and when you factor in acquisitions, it gets even messier.
One dept/office/region may embrace DITA while others don't.
Licensing can be another issue. I think IBM use Epic Editor.
eg we wrote business process maps a few years back in Visio only to find that the Boston office had no license.
DITA is the coin of the realm for developing technical publications throughout IBM. To answer Paul's question: IBM is using DITA as much as they ever have and, based on presentations I've seen by IBMers, I'd say they plan on using it for the foreseeable future.
They use a customized version of the Arbortext editor (a successor to Epic). But Arbortext isn't the only option: there are several good DITA-aware editors in the marketplace. Pick the one that makes sense for your organization.
Thanks Larry,
Many people see IBM as a dinosaur of sorts and not very 'innovative' but my experience with them has been the opposite. Very well-run company.
Thanks Larry,
Many people see IBM as a dinosaur of sorts and not very 'innovative' but my experience with them has been the opposite. Very well-run company.
Even though IBM invented DITA, it faced the same adoption problems everyone else does. There was resistance throughout the corporation and a lot of “selling” had to occur before they reached critical mass and the adoption rate justified the investment. There were many technical issues to address and, to the credit of the very sparse development team, they were addressed and continue to be addressed today. Even as pioneers, it took years for IBM to get to the point where the majority of the writing groups were using DITA.
There are many projects underway to help tailor DITA more for environments other than software and hardware products which will also increase adoption. I see a bright future for DITA, even in Europe. I know that there are many advocates working to try to close the education gap and you should see a critical mass growing in opportunities for that market.
It looks to be an interesting ride.
DITA is the primary standard in use on a broad scale and across every brand in the organization – approaching nearly a million English topics which are reused and published in dozens of national languages and in a variety of output formats in support of product publications and technical doc worldwide. The business case is at least 12:1 – 15:1 validatd ROI on savings and avoidance alone not including reuse and direct customer benefits. DITA use also extends to business partners and suppliers and is finding its way into product offerings such as FileNet P8- a DITA-enabled CMS/CCM. DITA is growing rapidly without signs of abatement.
Thanks Mike,
<The business case is at least 12:1 – 15:1 validated ROI on savings and avoidance alone not including reuse and direct customer benefits
This is the type of information I’m after. If you have any pointers to research data re: this ROI, please add it.
Thanks
Ivan
Hello Julio,
< There was resistance throughout the corporation and a lot of “selling” had to occur before they reached critical mass and the adoption rate justified the investment.
This is where I am right now. I’ve use DITA and seen its benefits first-hand but internal politics are proving very difficult on the client site.
The CEO has taken a step back and asked us (team leads) to find the best solution and you know how people tend to get defensive when ‘change’ appears.
Some get it and have rowed in, whereas others are trying to undermine the move. Mike’s comments below have given me more food for thought. Not to follow up on them.
Thanks Mike,
<The business case is at least 12:1 – 15:1 validated ROI on savings and avoidance alone not including reuse and direct customer benefits
This is the type of information I’m after. If you have any pointers to research data re: this ROI, please add it.
Thanks
Ivan
Hello Julio,
< There was resistance throughout the corporation and a lot of “selling” had to occur before they reached critical mass and the adoption rate justified the investment.
This is where I am right now. I’ve use DITA and seen its benefits first-hand but internal politics are proving very difficult on the client site.
The CEO has taken a step back and asked us (team leads) to find the best solution and you know how people tend to get defensive when ‘change’ appears.
Some get it and have rowed in, whereas others are trying to undermine the move. Mike’s comments below have given me more food for thought. Not to follow up on them.
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