C. Canart, M. Garnier, H. Morceau
Paris Diderot University, August 30th 2019
Abstract
Since it was released to the public in 2005, DITA has been adopted by an increasing number of firms, and it has become one of the most popular standards for technical documentation. The DITA standard was designed with the intent to meet the needs of any firm and is sometimes thought of as a universal solution, but is this truly the case? When considering a DITA implementation, one should make sure that DITA is really suited to their particular situation and needs, and that it can be implemented successfully within the company. In this paper, we tried to understand how one can determine whether DITA is the right solution for their company before taking the leap and undertaking a content migration. For the purpose of this paper, we gathered data through a survey aimed at both DITA and non-DITA users, a review of existing resources, and several interviews of DITA experts and representatives of technical writing solution firms. Whether DITA is right for a company doesn’t seem to be wholly dependant on the size of the company, as one might think at first, but has more to do with the technical know-how of the personnel and the budget allocated to the documentation team.