Structured content vs Content management
Posted on September 24, 2007
Category Best Practices | 4 Comments
I was recently reminded of a point of confusion that often crops up in discussions of things like structured content, DITA, and content management. The point is this: even if you don’t have a content management system or plans to move to XML, there are many benefits to structuring you content now. In other words, while DITA is a structured approach to content, and content management frequently benefits from structured content, you do not need to go to DITA or get a content management system to benefit from structuring your content. You can create structured content in any tool.
Structured content means that your content follows a formal, predictable, observable structure. At the very least, well structured content promotes usability, is easier to write, and sets you up for the time when you do have that budget for the CM system. So even if you’re not in the market for CM now, it’s always a good time to structure your content.
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Structure is always better than no structure. If you’re going to go to the effort of structuring your content, you might as well follow an industry standard such as DITA, assuming your content is going to be integrated at some point into something else. All the mainstream authoring tools support DITA at this point, so it’s not like this type of capability is hard to find.
Astute observations Steve. The benefits of well-planned structure defintely offer high returns in the areas you detailed.
I focus on the XML, analyze the content, determine the document type and then decide if a DITA is appropriate. There are other industry standards that also work. Allowing authoring software support to drive structure is a shortcut prescription that may, or may not, work for the user and the content.
I so agree with this! Not having a CMS should not be an excuse to have non-structured content. Structure is the first step toward Content Management I may say. Not to mention the fact that structured content is so much easier to maintain and and keep at a high quality level.
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