November 2005 © 2005 IBM Corporation http://w3.ibm.com/ibm/presentations IBM User Technologies Information architecture using DITA maps Michael Priestley IBM®
November 2005 © 2005 IBM Corporation
IBM User Technologies
Information architecture using DITA maps
Michael PriestleyIBM®
IBM User Technologies
Information architecture using DITA maps © 2005 IBM Corporation2
Agenda
Assumptions
– What we want our information to be
– What we want out of a process
Scenario-based information development
1. Develop understanding
2. Develop architecture
3. Develop content
4. Rinse and repeat
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Information architecture using DITA maps © 2005 IBM Corporation3
Our information should be:
Audience-focused
Task-oriented
Accurate
Easy to read and navigate
Support new users and experienced users
Easy to give feedback on
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Information architecture using DITA maps © 2005 IBM Corporation4
Our information development process needs to be:
Focused on user goals
Focused on end-to-end support of the users’ tasks
Deliver content on time
Provide verifiable results
Allow for mid-course corrections, and help authors manage changing requirements
Allow for user involvement/feedback at every stage, not just the end
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Understand, then model, then author
First understand your audience and their tasks, using audience analysis, task analysis, and scenarios
Then define the topics you will need for the subject and audience
Finally, create the topics
And expose your assumptions, so your readers can give you intelligent feedback
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Iterative information development
Information development
Modeling
Authoring
UnderstandingUnderstand your user and his goals.
Define the outline of information and relationships between areas of information
Develop topic content and define chunks for re-use.
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Steps for each phase
Phase 1 - Develop understanding
1. Audience analysis
2. Model roles and goals
3. Create personas and document scenarios
4. Develop first-draft tutorials and samplesPhase 2 - Develop architecture
1. Define task flow, overall and per role
2. Identify supporting materials
3. Organize supporting materials
4. Integrate supporting materials into navigation schemePhase 3 - Develop content
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Phase 1 – Understanding the user
1. Define your audience, and identify roles and goals
2. Make roles concrete with personas, make goals concrete with scenarios
3. Adapt key parts of scenarios for tutorials and samples
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Step 1. Defining your audience
1. Define roles: who they “should” be
2. Research: who they actually are
3. Define responsibilities
4. Define skills: what they need to know to fulfill those responsibilities
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Step 1 cont. Identifying roles and goals
Identify roles and goals for the product
UML and UEUML are good modeling choices.
Information architect should be involved with this activity.
Buyer
Buying items
Seller
Selling items
Product
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Step 2. Creating personas and scenarios for the roles and goals
DITA documents are an appropriate media/format
Information architect should be involved in this activity
John sells an old toy:
Prepares the toy and takes pictures using his digital camera
Registers at the auction site and posts it under the category "vintage collectables"
Sets a reserve bid of $10
Bob buys a vintage collectable:
etc.
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What makes a good scenario?
Realistic (not just made-up)
Useful (not trivial, not idiosyncratic)
Complete (don't gloss over parts you don't understand)
Goal-oriented (not just exploration, describe achievement)
End-to-end (support the goal even outside of the product)
Specific (don't try to be universal, or comprehensive)
Coordinated (ties together with other scenarios where possible, part of the big picture)
Documented (don't just invent and throw away)
Accurate (you can make guesses, but must validate them)
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Step 3. Developing samples and tutorials
DITA topics are an appropriate media for documenting samples; DITA mixed-type documents are appropriate media for tutorials
Both the information architect and information developer may be involved in this activity.
Smaller/more focused tutorials and samples may not require the involvement of information architects
Identify what skills the tutorials build, and map to the skills required for each role.
Sample product: A vintage toy
Tutorial:Placing a bid on a vintage toy
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Why tutorials and samples so early?
Tutorials and samples flesh out a scenario and make it real and testable
Once you have your tutorials and samples, you can send them out for review, or even release them in a beta version of the product
This means you're writing tasks (in tutorials) and developing samples even before you start defining the taskflow
And it means you're getting feedback on your assumptions before you've developed anything except "Getting started" information
By developing information in the order your users need it, you get feedback when you need it.
By doing the hard stuff first, you make sure it gets done – and you reduce risk for the whole project
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Review: Phase 1 - Developing understanding
1. Define your audience, and identify roles and goals
2. Make roles concrete with personas, make goals concrete with scenarios
3. Adapt key parts of scenarios for tutorials and samples
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Phase 1: Demonstration
Documenting a role and a goal with DITA topics
Documenting a scenario with nested topics
Authoring a tutorial with concepts and tasks
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Phase 1 Feedback
Test the tutorials with users
Find out what roles and goals have been mismatched
Correct assumptions early
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Phase 2 - Developing architecture
1. Define task flow, overall and per role
2. Identify supporting materials
3. Organize supporting materials
4. Integrate topics into navigation scheme
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Step 1. Defining task flows
DITA maps are appropriate media for expressing hierarchies with sequences; chunk the map based on who will own each part, and based on role divisions. But also capture end-to-end flow, to show interaction among roles.
Use HTA (hierarchical task analysis) with scenarios as input
Information architect determines high-level task flow
Information developers may own parts of task flow that are specific to a component they own.
1. Buying items1. Finding items
Browsing by category Searching for items
2. Evaluating items Assessing quality Asking the seller questions Comparing prices
3. Placing bids
4. Paying for items
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List and organize scenario steps into taskflows
Building a model of your users’ tasks:
What are the tasks?
What sequence do they get performed in?
What are the high-level tasks? What are low-level tasks?
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Task flow demonstration
Develop a task flow in a DITA map
Create stub tasks based on the task flow
Identify sequences
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Step 2. Identifying supporting materials
DITA maps (relationship tables) are appropriate media. Relationship tables should be stored with the component that owns the tasks they support.
Information architects develop overall organization, and work with information developers to identify required supporting material for each task, coordinating to avoid ambiguity in titles and redundancy in content.
Categories Browsing categories
Item properties
Sellers Asking sellers questions
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Mapping concepts and reference information
Task-oriented information development:Starting from your tasks:
1. Identify the concepts that support them.
2. Identify the reference information that supports the tasks and concepts.
3. Map tasks to their supporting topics (concept and reference).
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Defining relationships in a table
Identify concepts and reference information that support a task
By default, topics defined in one column link to the topics defined in other columns.
Information within a cell is not related unless you set the cell’s collection-type to “family”
Use a separate topicgroup or reltable definition to link together topics that are in the same column/information type.
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Relationship table demonstration
Create a relationship table in a DITA map
Identify supporting concepts and reference topics
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Step 3. Organizing supporting materials
DITA maps (hierarchies and groups) are appropriate media. Conceptual groupings and reference categories may uncover the need for new topics, which are fed back into the relationship table.
Information architects develop overall organization, and work with information developers to implement.
ItemsQuality of items
Categories of items Shipping prices
Post
Courier
International
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Organize the concepts into a concept hierarchy
Use the concept hierarchy to explain the big picture:– Divide large concepts into parts and examples.
– Organize them into higher-level and lower-level.
– Include user roles in the hierarchy, show how roles relate to each other.
Allow linking between higher-level and lower-level concepts Allow linking between closely related sibling concepts (for
example two competing implementation strategies) Document roles and responsibilities for the user here
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Conceptual hierarchy demonstration
Organize concepts into a hierarchy
Identify missing higher-level concepts
Rework relationship table
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Prioritize and organize reference information
Use overview topics to create summaries:– Create categories to add value.
– Derive categories from the product/UI, where appropriate.
– Incorporate categories back into your linking models to support high-level tasks.
– When all else fails, alphabetize.
Spend more time on reference topics that are heavily referenced in your model, or are complex/hard to understand
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Reference category demonstration
Organize reference topics into categories
Add categories to relationship table
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Step 4. Integrating topics into a single navigation scheme
DITA maps (hierarchies) are appropriate media. One map per reusable user goal or reference category. Use linking attribute to prevent included concepts from affecting task-oriented links.
Integration may be done in different ways, or not at all – for example, tutorials and samples could have their own galleries, and have only summary topics in the navigation.
Information architects own the overall navigation; information developers may be responsible for parts of navigation that are within the boundaries of components they own.
1. Buying items Tutorials and samples for buying items
Sample: A vintage toy Tutorial: Buying a vintage toy
– About items
1. Finding items Categories Browsing by category Searching for items
2. Evaluating items Sellers and item quality
Sellers Quality of items
Assessing quality Asking the seller questions Comparing prices
3. Placing bids
4. Paying for items Shipping prices
Post
Courier
International
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Integrate the concept and reference topics into the task hierarchy
Add concepts to support reading flow without breaking task flow:Add high-level concepts as children of high-level tasks.
Add low-level concepts right before their low-level tasks.
Include them for navigation (reading sequence).
Exclude them from linking (supporting relationships are already modeled).
Add reference topics for ease of retrievalReference topics may be in their own category hierarchies
Or included under a concept or task, or at the end of a task branch, when the reference topics are only useful in that context
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Navigation integration demonstration
Pull concepts and tasks into navigation without changing links
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Review: Phase 2 - Developing architecture
1. Define task flow, overall and per role
2. Identify supporting materials
3. Organize supporting materials
4. Integrate topics into navigation scheme
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Phase 2 Feedback
Build a prototype information system and start testing with users. Feed results back into previous phase, as well as forward into next.
Internal prototypes can include links between scenarios and topics for ease of change tracking (add a scenarios column to the reltable)
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Phase 3 - Developing content
DITA topics (concept, task, and reference topics, or other specialized topic types) are appropriate media.
Information architects and information developers develop the content for the portions of task flows that they own
Avoid links in content, which make topics less reusable. Manage links using maps instead, wherever possible.
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Phase 3 Feedback
To assist with getting user feedback on your design and topics:
Add a feedback link to every topic during output processing
Validate your role descriptions with users
Tie technical support information (problem reports, FAQs) back into the information lifecycle
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Review: The end-to-end flow
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Review results: Our information should be:
Audience-focused – start with audiences, include audience definitions/awareness in every stage
Task-oriented – drive all content development and navigation from task flows
Accurate – test early and often
Easy to read and navigate – reflects user tasks both in content and organization
Support new users and experienced users – same understanding and language in tutorials and in help system
Easy to give feedback on – make tutorials and prototypes available early, embed feedback mechanisms
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Review results: Our information development process needs to be:
Focused on user goals – First in development priority, first in navigation
Focused on end-to-end support of the users’ tasks – Task flows used for both development and navigation
Deliver content on time – Tutorials and samples developed first, can be used by Alpha or Beta customers
Provide verifiable results – Tutorials, prototypes, and content are testable
Allow for mid-course corrections, and help authors manage changing requirements – Separation of architecture artifacts (maps) from content artifacts (topics) allows faster, simpler changes at either level
Allow for user involvement/feedback at every stage, not just the end – Feedback opportunities at each stage
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Summary
1. User roles and goals drive scenarios
2. Scenarios drive task flows and supporting material
3. Task flows drive content
Testable at each step: tutorials, prototypes, Betas
Result: user focused
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Actual results
Focus on tutorials and samples in early development stages
Focus on scenarios and task analysis
Emerging use of personas, role definitions
Frequent user testing
= Dramatic improvement in customer satisfaction
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More about DITA
DITA articles:
http://www.xml.coverpages.org/dita.html
OASIS DITA Technical Committee:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita
DITA toolkit:
http://dita-ot.sourceforge.net