Meet publications professionals who have implemented content management strategies and the OASIS DITA standard in their organizations. Learn strategies for content management, taxonomy, faceted search, translation, social media, agile workflow, DITA, Lightweight DITA and a whole lot more! Hear from key tools developers who are actively supporting the standards-based community.
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Taxonomy for DITA:
A powerful magnifier with a harsh lens
Join Mekon’s Joe Pairman at 3:55pm on 4 April
Content is wasted if users can’t find it. With a metadata framework, you can build the links, keywords, and filters that get users to the information they need. It helps authors manage content and allows your whole organization to start defining terms and categories consistently.
However, like a powerful magnifying glass, a metadata initiative reveals your current weaknesses. It is not sufficient to apply a superficial layer of taxonomy to arbitrarily chunked-up sections. For users to find specific, relevant pieces of information, you must establish each topic’s unique purpose and tag it accordingly. Your metadata must go beyond the needs of output formatting and into the webs of meaning conveyed by your content.
Writers must follow the framework diligently. DITA itself does not mandate writing topics with a defined purpose and style. A metadata framework, to be of any use, does. To be sure, there is no perfect taxonomy, no controlled vocabulary that can’t be challenged and improved. But those who apply it must do so consistently at any point in time.
The demands of controlled vocabularies stretch our technology too. CMSs and authoring tools enthusiastically add taxonomy features, but real-world requirements often find those features lacking. Drawing from the wider world of dedicated taxonomy tools provides a route to greater power and control.
In this presentation, Joe Pairman gives a practical guide to the challenges, improvements, and opportunities that a serious taxonomy initiative can bring to any structured content implementation.