Trends in Best Practices That Are Driving

Improvements in Customer Experience

Our Presenters

Laura Bellamy

Information architect at VMware, Inc.

• Co-author DITA Best Practices: A Roadmap

for Writing, Editing, and Architecting in DITA

• Focus on content strategy and information

architecture for enterprise products

• DITA XML conversion expert

• Define DITA XML standard at VMware

• Explore ways to improve total information

experience

Our Presenters

Chip Gettinger

• SDL - Vice President, XML Solutions

• Working with clients to improve customer

experiences

• Adoption of DITA, Component Content

Management (CCM) and dynamic delivery

• Adoption of product content maturity

modeling

Agenda

• Understand customer expectations

• Modern information access

• Changing role of technical writers

• Strategic deliverables

• Creating strategic content

Evolving Customer Expectations

February 8, 1999© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Evolving Customer Expectations

Satisfaction is relative to what you expect.

VS

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

The Reign of PDF is Over

• Portability

• Availability

• Readability

• Consumability

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Information with Legs

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Converging Trends

Converging Trends

Customer Experience Impacts

Aberdeen’s research indicates that companies creating documentation that is automatically

customizable to various use-cases achieve a 39% increase in customer satisfaction scores and a

16% decrease in inquiries made to customer support organizations. In both cases, this represents

over twice the impact achieved by companies without this capability.

David Houlihan, Senior Research Associate, Product Content Management

Seamless Information Experience

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Strategic Delivery Formats

• Portable content

▫ Tablet

▫ eReaders

▫ Mobile devices

• Engaging content

▫ Video

▫ Communities and forums

▫ Facebook, Twitter, blogs

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Role of a Technical Writer

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Role of a Technical Writer

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Designing Strategic Content

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Designing Strategic Content

DITA source + Stylesheets = Cohesive output

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Authoring Portable Content

• Consider format during information planning

▫ Just because you could, doesn’t mean you should

▫ Plan for multiple output formats

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Authoring Portable Content

• Consider format during information planning

▫ Just because you could, doesn’t mean you should

▫ Plan for multiple output formats

▫ Be aware that format can shape content

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Device Standards and Functionality

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

VS

What Customers Experience Today

Interactive Product Content

Video: Flash or Substance

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Hands in the Pot

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Writers

Hands in the Pot

Editors

Training

Support

Engineering

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Variations

Of Deliverables

Paradigm of Topics andDynamic Publishing

Market Segments

Variations in Customer

Profiles

Product

Variations

Interactive Customer Experience

• Use the workflow in your CCM system to route content and control quality

• Investigate SME contribution tools

• Establish reuse guidelines

• Use DITA 1.2 constraints and templates

• Establish a conditional processing strategy

• Nominate a project manager to coordinate releases

Tips for Stakeholder Contribution

© 2011 Laura Bellamy

Questions?

Thank You for Joining Us

Coming Attractions:

DITA Webinars

Oct 13: What’s Next for DITA & Tech Docs

Nov 1: Powerful Content Creation and Management for XML and DITA: Adobe FrameMaker 10 and SDL Trisoft

Registration: www.sdl.com/en/xml/events

DITA Fest and Trisoft User Day

Oct 25 & 26 in Santa Clara, CA

Details and Registration: www.sdl.com/ditafest2011

View recordings of all webinars in the DITA & the Global Customer Experience webinar series

www.sdl.com/en/xml/resources/recorded-webinars