Structured authoring and XML

Table of contents

Abstract

What is structured authoring?

What is XML?

The impact of structured authoring on a publishing workflow

Workflow options

Roles and responsibilities

Developing a business case for structured authoring and XML

Does your organization need structure?

Implementing a structured workflow

Summary

Roles and responsibilities

The roles and responsibilities in a typical publishing group change when structured authoring is implemented. This section explains how traditional roles change and describes the new role of the document architect.

Note that in a small group, one person may hold any or all of these roles.

Document architect

The document architect defines and implements document structure. The document architect must identify information types and establish their required structure. For example, a document architect would build a structure for a company’s training manuals (Figure 15).

structuring training manuals

Figure 15: Structuring training manuals

Template designer

The template designer is responsible for establishing the look and feel of content deliverables, such as books, online help, e‑learning, and so on. In traditional desktop publishing, the template designer is usually a tools expert who can create templates in the appropriate publishing tools. In a structured authoring environment, the designer might also be asked to learn Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) and XSL Formatting Objects (XSL-FO) to create HTML, PDF, and other output from the XML files. (More information about XSL and XSL-FO: http://www.w3.org/Style/XSL/)

Writer

In a structured workflow, writers, as always, create content. In the 1990s, writers often were asked to take on additional formatting and publishing responsibilities; in a structured workflow, these tasks are generally automated. The document architect establishes the overall structure of the documents; the template designer implements a look and feel that is automatically assigned based on the structure of the document.

Many writers who are new to structure are uncomfortable with the perceived lack of control over the final document. They have become accustomed to “tweaking” the final output to make it look right. Any implementation of a structured workflow must anticipate some resistance and perhaps even outright hostility from a minority of writers. (Wider resistance may indicate the new structure does not accommodate all types of content. A thorough analysis of multiple document types before implementation will minimize this problem. However, it is important to have a change process in place to handle revisions to the structure.)

This resistance seems misplaced, though. Instead of wrestling with formatting problems, writers can focus on content and organization—typically a better fit for writers’ skills and interests than desktop publishing. After the initial transition and learning curve, working within a structure increases writer productivity and improves the quality and consistency of the final output.

Technical editors

By enforcing correct structure during content development, a structured workflow eliminates the need for editors to check a document for structure. Instead, editors can focus on word choice, grammar, and overall organization. By automating some of the most tedious parts of the editing job, a structured authoring environment makes it possible for editors to do a more thorough edit in the same amount of time.

Editors are also uniquely positioned to assist with structure implementation. Technical editors see more of a total document library than any other member of a publishing team (with the possible exception of production editors). Because of this familiarity with the overall documentation set, editors are excellent resources to assist in establishing an information architecture.

Editors may also have the skills to establish the needed taxonomy for metadata. Taxonomy is a classification system; in a structured workflow, classifying includes defining element names and hierarchy, which elements need attributes, and what values those attributes could have.

Production editors

In many companies today, writers and editors handle production tasks, but there are a few documentation teams that still have production editors. With formatting generated automatically by the structure of a document, the workload for these production editors should decrease. Many production editors will refocus their efforts on the transformation part of the workflow. Instead of correcting formatting errors after the fact, they will get involved in defining the transformation files that assign formatting based on structure. Production editors will verify that output formatting is working correctly.

A difficult transition?

The transition from “free-form” writing to structure can be difficult. Just as some writers dislike working in a template-driven environment where formatting is constrained, some dislike the regimentation of structured authoring.

Structured authoring offers the business organization compelling advantages, including improved consistency and increased productivity because manual editing and formatting time are decreased. The widespread implementation of structured workflows will likely result in structure being used to deliver information in ways we have not yet even anticipated. It is indisputable, though, that structured information is more valuable than unstructured information. These advantages must be weighed against the arguments from the writers that writing in a structured environment is “less interesting.”

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Developing a business case for structured authoring and XML