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DITA

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Darwin Information Typing Architecture

DITA stands for Darwin Information Typing Architecture. The purpose of DITA is to standardize the architecture of XML data modeling in technical writing, according to the OASIS DITA Technical Committee. In documentation planning it is important to have a standardize model of XML data especially when using XML languages with different programs.

DITA is not a tool but there are tools that support DITA. The use of DITA topic-oriented architecture may influence document planning because it is only accessible in certain programs. Therefore, if DITA is being used in a project this would mean that you may not be able to use Microsoft Word for the document because DITA isn’t available in that program. In choosing programs that enable DITA architecture three names come to mind, Adobe FrameMaker 9, DITA FMX and DITA for Publishers.

Why Use DITA?

Before thinking about the pros and cons of DITA, we, as a company must look at if we could implement DITA and reuse the contents of the documents. DITA’s reuse feature is key to many projects because, it will save us time in building style guides and distributing them. The content is built into the tool and can be built on and reused and even changed. DITA is uniform so it is great for multi-language and multi-format documents. In the long run using DITA will save the company a lot of time and money (Wlodarczyk, 2014).

Of the many reasons to use DITA out there, the main reason that would benefit our company would be that DITA supports information sharing. Some of the other reasons to use DITA are as follows:

  • DITA unifies XML Language
  • Topic-based DITA offers flexibility in content organization by allowing you to order, reorder and nest topics to create any kind of information product.
  • You can reuse the Modularity and topics can be used in more than one deliverable at once.
  • Topics can be presented one at the time in a simple flat online help system, or together in a complex multi-level book structure.
  • You can adapt the tag vocabulary to fit your own specific needs.
  • New topic types can be created from existing ones, which allows for evolution over time.
  • One of DITA’s main advantages is that adding new topics does not make previous projects incompatible with new ones(Baril, 2006).

When DITA Fails to Prevail

DITA, is reliable if the structure is reliable. The team has to be strong and have a fail proof structure for their content. DITA will fail only if the team isn’t being thorough with content or planning. Below are some of the reasons why DITA would fail:

  • Failure to plan:This includes charging ahead without requirements and an ROI framework, but also under-budgeting, not appointing a project lead, not setting aside time for meetings or training, etc.
  • Publishing:plug-in, publishing pipeline, and style sheet development all require skills that are not widely available, so to find someone competent you are almost required to work with a consultant or software vendor.
  • Bad, weak, or missing content strategy.
  • Misguided reuse strategy
  • Specialization too early in the project.
  • Failure to constrain DITA: Simpler is better(Wlodarczyk, 2014).

Analysis of DITA Tools

Adobe FrameMaker: FrameMaker also allows you to generate online output by installing the DITA Open Toolkit and the FrameMaker plug-in that adds the Generate Output menu option. Although FrameMaker is adaptable, there are errors in DITA topics. Sometimes, FrameMaker displays red text when it encounters something it can’t deal with in a DITA file. Usually, the problem is that you have opened a file that has been formatted to look pretty (“pretty print”) in an XML editor such as Oxygen. (Terry, 2008) FrameMaker allows you to insert elements where they are not allowed by the schema. Sure, it will raise a warning when you try to save a file that violates the schema. Then you can try to fix the issue, if Adobe doesn’t crash first, or if you don’t need to resort to editing the XML. Some other con’s to Adobe FrameMaker are:

  • You lose undo history after saving a file.
  • There is no raw XML view–the closest is an option to view the open file in Notepad.
  • It pollutes the markup. For example, it adds attributes for tables and images.

This tool is good for learning DITA because it forces you to fix all of the bugs before you implement the DITA. Otherwise, if you’re looking for a quick and easy DITA tool FrameMaker isn’t the one you need.

DITA FMX: . DITA FMX is a plugin for Adobe FrameMaker. Adobe is a trusted name when it comes to technical writing. This being said when using frame maker one of the best features, is being able to create PDF files. DITA FMX plug-in improves upon the DITA support provided with Adobe FrameMaker 8 and FrameMaker9, including increased coverage of the DITA 1.1 specification and improvements to the authoring experience. (Alan, 2010). It allows you to create PDF’s in FrameMaker. DITA FMX allows Frame Maker Users to enjoy using FrameMaker for all of your DITA needs without as many bugs.

DITA for Publishers: DITA for Publishers is a community forum to enable publishers to learn how to use and implement DITA. Some of the features of DITA for Publishers are:

  • Allows users to use the Toolkit plugins to process publication maps
  • Use the Word-to-DITA transformation framework to convert consistently-styled Word documents into DITA maps and topics.
  • Use the DITA-to-InDesign transforms to generate InCopy and InDesign documents from DITA source.(DITA for Publushers, 2013)

DITA for Publishers is a great tool for learning DITA and implementing DITA in maps and publications. This program provides a great start up for using DITA in all documentations not only technical writing. It is cost effective and a great tool for publications.

 

Choosing the Right Program

Looking at the three programs I have compared, the best option for our company to go with is, the DITA FMX program. Although, DITA for Publishers is a very cost effective program it isn’t a professional program. There isn’t the ability to reuse information or create Multilanguage DITA files. Adobe Frame Maker alone has a great DITA program but there are many bugs associated with the program that are easily fixed with the DITA FMX plug in. Since two of our writers are already working in Adobe FrameMaker the DITA FMX plug in will enhance the features they are currently using as well as enable them to create PDF documents. The PDF documents will enable quick viewing from portable devices and easy editing. Adobe Frame Maker has the capability of file sharing which will make sharing our work over long distance less complicated.

Works Cited

Alan. (2010, January 6). LEXIMATION RELEASES DITA-FMX 1.1. Retrieved from groupwellesley: http://www.groupwellesley.com/2010/01/06/leximation-releases-dita-fmx-10/

Baril, F. (2006, April 13). Benefits of using DITA. Retrieved from DITA XML . Org: http://dita.xml.org/benefits-using-dita

Colborn, B. (2012, January 10). FrameMaker is a Real DITA Editor.. A Very Poor One. Retrieved from Ditanaughts.org: http://ditanauts.org/2012/01/10/framemaker-is-a-real-dita-editor-a-very-poor-one/

DITA for Publushers. (2013, April 21). Retrieved from DITA 4 Publishers: http://dita4publishers.sourceforge.net/

Terry, S. (2008, November). DITA Authoring in FrameMaker 8. Retrieved from Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/Scriptorium/authoring-dita-in-frame-maker-presentation

Wlodarczyk, P. (2014, February 16). How to Decide if DITA is Right for You and Where to Learn More. Retrieved from Easy DITA: http://easydita.com/how-to-decide-if-dita-is-right-for-you-and-where-to-learn-more/

 

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Website Critique

Website critique

Background Information:

BabyCenter_Logo 

Http://www.babycenter.com/ is a great go to website, for tips and information for new and expectant parents. This website has valuable information for any parent of children varying in age, from in utero, to approximately age ten. Some of this information includes product recalls, nutritional information, advice and support, pregnancy facts week by week and many other useful tools.

A great feature of the website is the email newsletters. Once the user has signed up for weekly emails, the website takes their information and generates an email based on the child/fetus’s age. In the emails, users can find details on parenting tips for various stages and age ranges for infants. These tips includes information like, when to stop feeding certain foods and for the pregnant mothers it sends weekly updates of the fetus’s growth patterns.

Arrangement

This website is unsuccessful at achieving suitable, eye catching arrangement. At first glance this website looks extremely cluttered. There is a lot of information coming at the reader in all different forms of content. There are videos on the right side of the screen and two tool bars at the top of the screen which appears to be dynamic. This can be overwhelming, especially for a new mother, who is seeking out advice and tips on caring for a newborn. Every link on the page seems to be clustered at the top and as you scroll down, there appears to be white space nearing the “more tools” and “contact us” section.

Emphasis

 

When looking at this website you can tell that the designer is emphasizing the tools that help parents in calculating various things, the support blogs and the video of the week. These items have a fairly large heading in comparison to the font in the tool bars and they are grey in contrast to the white background. The video of the week is fairly large and is eye catching because the definition is different from the pictures on the rest of the screen.

Clarity

 

This website isn’t very clear. There is a lot of clutter on the screen and it is, seemingly hard to navigate. The designer attempts to create on screen clarity by, putting boxes around the content to frame it. This just groups the information in a non-definitive order. If the website had listed the content in alphabetical order it would have improved the clarity.

 

Conciseness

 

The website designer was very concise when it comes to: the grey scale in the headings on the page, the boxes around the featured text, bold in the font in the tools section and the green blue and white color scheme. The issue is that, the elaborate design in this website, slows down the usability and restricts users who would want to move quickly through the information.

Tone

 

The tone of this website is visually frenetic, there is a lot going on, on the page at once. The designer seems to be more interested in emphasizing the tools on the page, than the information. The underlying tone is professional. The authors of this website want to deliver the most professional, up-to-date medical information, available and you can see this in their wording.

Ethos

 

The “babycenter” website has the look and feel of a magazine. They are targeting women who predominantly read magazines by, adding tools and quizzes to give the website a trusting vibe. Women who grew up reading magazines as their primary source of information, will be drawn to this website just by its design layout. They will in turn, trust the content of the website as they have trusted the content of so many magazines over the years, therefore building ethos.

Gestalt Principles

 

The following table explains how the http://www.babycenter.com designers incorporate the Gestalt Principles in their design.

 

Principle How babycenter.com Incorporates the principle
Figure-Ground Contrast This principle is predominantly shown in the framing of the content on the website. The frame makes the content stick out from the background showing importance. The darker tone enhances the white field in the background
Degrading Figure-Ground with Visual Noise The visual noise in this website occurs towards the bottom of the page, where you see lists and advertisements. The web designers purposely put white space in-between the content of the page and the visual noise to enhance the contents in the framed boxes.
Grouping The grey boxes around the content, fences off one group from another on the page. Although there is a list of tools at the bottom of the page, the most significant titles are grouped and sectioned off by grey frames. The closure of the text creates cohesion.
Patterns: Creating Groups Across the Communication The layout of this website is a large pattern. The tools and advice topics are bolded in an aquamarine color. The important headings are portrayed in dark grey color. The advertisements are colored in green. Any type of “go”, “join now”, “go, calculate” or search buttons, is in a green color.

 Visual Language Matrix

 

Below is a model of the visual language matrix which incorporates the four levels of design and the three coding modes. This matrix is filled out in accordance to the applicable information visible on http://www.babycenter.com.

  Textual Spatial Graphic
Intra ·         Plain Type Style

·         12 point font

 ·         Normal spacing between characters ·         Punctuation marks
Inter ·         Hyperlinks ·         Two clearly visible margins on the left and right side of the page

 

 ·         Text boxes surrounding important text

·         Aquamarine colored hyperlinks
Extra ·         Captions for Visuals ·         In the center of the page the picture size for the three links are the same size ·         Pictures are detailed

·         Pictures are in color

·         Use of color for data displays
Supra ·         Navigational Bars

·         Section Headings

·         Initial letters signaling the start of an article and major text segments

 ·         Page is a scrollable length

·         Portrait landscape

·         Placement of the data and pictures are visually appealing

 ·         Use of color scheme in text

·         Grey Scales around articles, pictures and videos

·