Are you satisfied with your DITA solution?
By Rob Hanna – President of Precision Content
If your answer is “No” then you are not alone according to a 2017 survey of more than 250 technical communication professionals conducted by The Content Wrangler. The DITA Satisfaction Survey[i] indicates that 62% of respondents using DITA are—to varying degrees—dissatisfied. As many as 10% of that group were very dissatisfied reporting that their DITA implementation is experiencing ‘big’ challenges. It’s not surprising that there’s significant dissatisfaction amongst those who have adopted DITA. After all, moving to DITA is a seismic shift in technical writing; a big change with many opportunities for things to go wrong.
The good news is that most DITA users don’t see their problems as insurmountable. Many just need a little help getting to where they’d like to be.
Breakdown of the issues
The Content Wrangler DITA Satisfaction Survey asked respondents to rank the top 10 issues facing DITA users. These issues fit into three major categories including
- skills development
- technology, and
- management.
The DITA Satisfaction Survey Aggregate Results revealed little spread between the ranking of the issues indicating that respondents likely faced more than one issue of concern.
What’s next
In this series of articles, we examine some of the issues impacting DITA satisfaction to help you find the best place to start making improvements. First up is skills development.
Other Posts in this series
- DITA Dissatisfaction Part 1: Skills Development – This problem area is far and away the most pressing obstacle for a successful DITA deployment. Too often authors are left to figure out how to adapt to writing for DITA on their own.
- DITA Dissatisfaction Part 2: Technology – We often hear about the failure of the technology as it relates to performance or complexity. While technology may seem the most likely culprit, it is often not the root cause of the problem.
- DITA Dissatisfaction Part 3: Management – While these issues appear to be of least concern to many survey respondents, they are most likely to form the root cause of all other issues identified in the survey. This points to a general lack of awareness as to the role management should be playing in collaborative, structured authoring solutions.
About Precision Content
Precision Content is a full-service solution provider to medium- and large-scale organizations around the globe seeking help to better understand and solve their content challenges. Our core services involve designing and implementing innovative, scalable, and sustainable solutions for authoring, managing, and publishing high-value content.
Footnote
[i] DITA Satisfaction Survey published by The Content Wrangler on May 31, 2017. Listen to an analysis of the results by Rob Hanna, Keith Schengili-Roberts, Mark Lewis, and Scott Abel and download a copy of the results today from BrightTalk at https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/9273/259775
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