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It Was With You All Along: Adaptive Content in DITA

Exploiting Layout and Content

Don Day, Contelligence Group

It Was With You All Along: Adaptive DITA!

What do shortdescs and conditional processing have to do with Adaptive Content, that trending phrase in Web content circles? As with comedy, it's all in the timing and delivery.

  • Perspectives on the Adaptive Content
  • How DITA has always been adaptive
  • What this picture of future success might look like

Background

Review: Responsive Design vs Adaptive Content

Both terms tend to be seen together.

  • Responsive Design:
    • Layout that responds to the device
  • Adaptive Content:
    • Content that adapts to the reader

It's time to Co-opt the C.I.A. Mantra

"Get the right information to the right person at the right time... or somebody may die!"

  • We tend to extend it: "in the right language," "in the right font," etc..
  • It's now the Prime Directive in today's "Content Intelligence Aware" environment.
  • Similar methods: Know your contact, adapt your message, tunnel it through the obstacles!

What Enables These Features?

Serving content in a responsive, adaptive manner happens by different mechanisms.

  • Responsive Design uses media queries: Tell me about your device!
  • Adaptive Content (more commonly called Personalization) uses information about the person: Tell me about yourself!

The Holy Grail: On-Demand Adaptiveness for CIA Content!

The concept is old, but today's technologies are more capable.

The goal is:

  • The dynamic (or "on demand") configuration of content and its delivery
  • For the known audience and task (or "conditionality).

Where DITA Fits In

What Makes DITA Content Not Adaptive?

Today, DITA production usually follows the compile paradigm:

  • Using conditions set at run-time, convert all the source into single static form.
  • For other users, Repeat, Lather, Rinse iteratively!

In effect,

  • Compiled Content is the proverbial "one trick pony."
  • Adaptive Content can combine tricks.

What Would Adaptive DITA be Like?

What are the Adaptive Features in DITA?

  • Progressive Disclosure (expand discovery from title to shortdesc to full topic)
  • Conditional Processing (apply properties for filtering and flagging the view)

Tools for Adapting DITA Content: Personalization

Used singly or together...

  • Forms: what the user can tell us
  • Analytics: what Big Data tells us about the user
  • History: what the user has recorded about their accomplishments:
    • Log files
    • Cookies
    • Records (for example, learning accomplishments via Tin Can API)

Tools for Adapting DITA Content: Logic (How Cues are Used)

  • Flagging: visually marking something in a view (using styles, images, labels)
  • Filtering: selectively removing something from a view (usually TMI-rich)
  • Contextual rendition (titled link vs widget view vs full view)
  • User-determined scoping (toggles, accordions, tabs)

How Can We Promote On-demand Adaptiveness?

CSNY: "We've got to get ourselves back to The Garden!"

  • Do:
    • Simple DITA: Whatever does not require two-pass resolution.
    • Lots of metadata is always good.
    • Use filtering to adapt, not embargo (contrast the two-tier CMS vs one-tier publishing DB)
  • Eschew: (2-pass issues for direct rendering)
    • Property cascades from a map
    • Use of footnotes and other relocatable content
    • Using internal content for version rollback (vs archived whole topics)

Wrap up and Discussion

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