Structured Content and Personalization

Structured Content and Personalization Presented by: - Su-Laine Yeo, Solutions Consultant, JustSystems - Chip Gettinger, VP XML Solutions, SDL - Tom Smith, Product Marketing Executive, SDL

Our Presenters Today Chip Gettinger VP XML Solutions SDL Structured Content Technologies Su-Laine Yeo Solutions Consultant Tom Smith Product Marketing Executive SDL Language Technologies

Agenda Business Drivers to Structured Content & Personalization Structured Authoring for Personalization Ensuring Consistent, High Quality & Global Ready Content Managing Structured Content for Personalization Q&A

Changing Customer Expectations for Technical Content Higher levels of Internet use Purchase and fact find more often over the Web Expect Customers to search Google & YouTube for technical support Want answers on Smartphone Want videos and interactive live content Show me just the information I need - when I need it Some Key Facts Some companies report that customers buy more than 80% of their products without touching it An enterprise software company reports that 18% of their customers want technical support on their Smartphone Companies are reporting that customers are expecting more highly graphic and interactive documentation

What s the Difference Between Delivery to the Web and Personalized Content Personalized Content Rich content VS Delivery to the web Flattened content

Drivers to New Trends Added Pressures on Information Developers Changing Expectations in Content Consumers Faster Product Lifecycle Changes Agile - Iterative Development Solutions Oriented More Sensitivity to Customer Profiles Distributed Teams Outsourcing Headcount Constraints SimShip (Simultaneous Launch) Want Information via the Web, Search Growing Expectation of Bite-Size Topics What I Need When I Need It Increased Language Expectations Community Feedback Targeted Tailored Information Solutions Oriented Impatient Consistency in Support & Documentation

Drivers to New Trends Added Pressures on Information Developers Changing Expectations in Content Consumers Move to XML structured content / DITA Move to dynamic publishing for technical publications

Applications and Content Targeted for Personalization Analyst Observation Mass personalization trends in product development are leading to more product configurations and more customized products. Rather than attempt to create 'catch-all' documentation to match all of these configurations, many companies are trying to apply this concept to product documentation as well. Aberdeen Group

Barriers to Personalized Customer Experience Managing Technical Content Today Content is locked into books and can t be easily shared because of tool sets Technical content written and published multiple times because it can t be shared Companies are creating and publishing content within multiple silos Customers have out of date and conflicting information on the Web Customers can t find the relevant information on the Web or in a PDF Some Key Facts Kinetic Concepts (Life Sciences) found that manuals were out of date as soon as customers purchased the product McAfee customers are finding technical information in too many different locations and it is not consistent Bentley Systems is being asked by customers for more interactive customer documentation

Structured Authoring for Personalization Traditional vs. personalized publishing Example: Producing variations of a document for different regions More examples Planning for personalization 12

Traditional Publishing In a traditional environment, authors are concerned with creating beautiful output: Authoring tool Output 13

Publishing with XML In a structured authoring environment, authors are concerned with creating valid content (which serves as input): Authoring tool XML markup Publishing system Output Style sheets 14

Publishing with XML The style sheets are really part of the publishing environment Authoring tool XML markup Publishing system Output Style sheets 15

Personalization with XML Publishing system can produce multiple outputs from the same XML markup How do we personalize? Authoring tool XML markup Publishing system Output Output Output Output Output Style sheets 16

One Way to Personalize: Conditional Text Suppose you need different versions of a document for different audiences: An employee handbook for managers and a slightly different one for non-managers Maintenance manuals for various models of a vehicle Policies and procedures that vary by state 17

Example: Policy that Varies by State In most cases, the renter is the only authorized operator of the vehicle without the express written permission of the rental car company. For rentals within the states of California, New York, and Nevada the renter s legal spouse is considered an Authorized Operator, and with permission from the renter, may operate the vehicle. With the exception of the State of Utah in the extent of an emergency situation, no other persons are allowed to operate the vehicle unless such persons are properly qualified, have signed an Additional Authorized Operator form and appear at the time of rental. 18

What is conditional text? Put content for all audiences in one set of files and mark up the content to indicate which parts are for which audience 19

Conditional text in XMetaL 20

Marking Text as Conditional 21

Deliver Exactly What the Reader Needs 22

Final publications Hawaii-only manual: The renter is the only authorized operator of the vehicle without the express written permission of the rental car company. No other persons are allowed to operate the vehicle unless such persons are properly qualified, have signed an Additional Authorized Operator form and appear at the time of rental. California-only manual: The renter and his or her legal spouse are the only persons authorized to operate the vehicle without the express written permission of the rental car company. No other persons are allowed to operate the vehicle unless such persons are properly qualified, have signed an Additional Authorized Operator form and appear at the time of rental. 23

Personalization: Metadata is the Key Conditional text is an example of using metadata Metadata is stored within the content Metadata determines relevancy of the content for each deliverable Publishing system matches metadata against personal data 24

Personalized Deliverables A_Document Your_Document (Hawaii) Audience= Hawaii Your_Document (California) Audience= California Metadata 25

DITA for Personalization: More Examples Break content into topics and deliver only the topics that the reader needs. For example: air conditioning as an optional feature in a car advanced information for support staff vs. day-to-day information for most readers Swap out small pieces of content using content references: brand names, product names locale-specific terminology brand-specific terminology legal boilerplate that varies by region or by contract 26

DITA Topics and Maps Topics are standalone, reusable Maps organize topics into a coherent set Maps yield different deliverables and formats 27

DITA Content References 1. Put placeholders in your document 2. Put what should go into the placeholder slot in a separate document 3. Publish with the placeholder filled in The State of requires that Hawaii The State of Hawaii requires that 28

Planning for Personalization Set up an implementation team Analyze your content Plan your metadata model Configure your tools Train your authors and users 29

What s Driving Global Business? 12% 9% 17% 33% Global customer satisfaction Revenues for emerging geographies Improved global/product brand management Time to market/simship 9% 20% Revenues for established geographies New product lines for specific market Gilbane Group, Multilingual Product Communications, 2009

Research into the Market Today Are your authors in one location or are they geographically dispersed? 70 60 2006 2008 50 40 % 30 20 10 0 In one location Geographically dispersed Outsourcing and off-shoring of R&D means technical communicators are dispersed worldwide

The Importance of Global Consistency New products need to be launched simultaneously across all markets Our quality and consistency were suffering, leading to poor communications with customers and potentially damaging the Philips brand. Luuk de Jager, Global Content Management Senior Manager, Philips

Pressures on Documentation Agile Development Multiple Content Formats Head of Documentation Heads are squeezed so much that clarity, quality and consistency of message suffers

Many Ways to Write the Same Thing WARNING: Switch power off only when the fan has stopped WARNING: Switch power off once the fan has stopped WARNING: Disconnect power only when the fan has stopped WARNING: Never switch the power off until the fan has stopped WARNING: Do not power down until the fan has stopped WARNING: Do not power down before the fan has stopped WARNING: You must wait until the fan has stopped before switching off the power WARNING: Wait until the fan has stopped running before switching off the power WARNING: Do not disconnect power if fan is running WARNING: Fan must be stopped before disconnecting power Counter-productive, inconsistent, expensive to translate. A need for sentence-level reuse

Global Writing Style and Standards Without global writing styles and standards, the quality of content suffers Passive Voice Future Tense Omission of determiners Clarity and Ambiguity Human Translation Machine Translation

Consistency in Terminology Time & Cost to Fix Quality & Clarity Brand Customer Satisfaction

Challenges for Technical Communication Teams How do we maintain consistency and quality globally? Global Style Guide How do we use a common vocabulary and maintain branding? Terminology Management How do we author efficiently and control translation costs? Reuse at sentence level

Global Authoring Management Create high-quality content that is cheap to translate, global-ready, consistent and clear

What Benefits do I get from Global Authoring? Achieve time-to-market deadlines for product content Actively reduce translation costs when content is created Maintain quality and standards globally Reduce editing and review time Train technical communicators to adhere to your corporate style

Customer Profile VMware Profile Executive Mandate Results $2b annual revenues Headquarters in Palo Alto, California 150,000 customers and 22,000 partners Virtualization software Move to DITA and structured authoring Reduce localization costs Improve style and quality worldwide Reduce time-tomarket Streamline authoring and editing Significant productivity improvement for authors and editors Used SDL Global AMS as a training tool for new writers Helped Technical Editing team develop a global style guide for VMware

Publishing Solution Evolution Increasing Automation Impact of Specific Standards (DITA, S1000D) STAGE 4 Next Gen Publishing Interactive Publishing Platforms XML Database Powered Metadata Rich, Multi-language Filter/Render on the Fly Closed Loop Feedback on Content Integrates with Other Systems WYSIWYG Focus STAGE 1 Desktop Publishing Desktop Tools Content and Presentation Combined Document /Section Based Unstructured, Format Markup Managed on File System Impact of XML STAGE 3 Integrated Publishing Prescriptive Standards (DITA/S1000D) Automated publishing with Native XML Support (XPP/DITA Open Toolkit, XSL-FO) End to End Focus Authoring, Publishing, Translation, Engineerin g, Training STAGE 2-Structured Content Move to XML (In-House DTD s) Separation of Style From Content (non-xml rendering) Content Components Versus Documents Print/Help/Web Multi -Channels 1990 Mid 1990 s Publishing Solution Evolution 2000 s

Multiple Touch Points, too Many Sources of Information

Shift To DITA Makes Possible Transformation of Personalized Content Traditional Book Methodology XML and Dynamic Publishing Methodology Content locked in context Information can t easily appear in multiple context and can t be tailored readily to audience High costs of formatting Content gets out of synch and is difficult to refresh Customers can t find what they need XML Topic Methodology Content can be reshuffled for deliverable Same content can live in multiple outputs Content can be delivered easily as web pages to consume Metadata and conditions can allow content to be tailored on the fly Content can be easily refreshed

Paradigm of Topics and Managing Personalization Product Variations Variations Of Deliverables Market Segments Variations in Customer Profiles

Customer Experience Benefits Live Content Dynamic presentation via Web Browser On-the-fly filtering presents users with applicable content from a single source of content Application presents applicable content based on user configurations Incremental updates for individual topics any time, with tracking Automatic audit trails track user interaction, feedback forms collect info Content can be bookmarked and annotated, and these are maintained during incremental updates Flattened Content PDF, HTML Contents set at delivery time. Content contains all product configurations or multiple deliverables are created User must find applicable content Full content set updated at scheduled times Little or no feedback from users No ability for users to annotate content and maintain annotations

Adopters of Joint Solution

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Learn More Download case studies, whitepapers and product briefs JustSystems Knowledge Center: http://na.justsystems.com/knowledgecenter SDL Knowledge Center: www.sdl.com/knowledgecenter Contact Us Su-Laine Yeo, JustSystems: su-laine.yeo@justsystems.com Chip Gettinger, SDL: cgettinger@sdl.com Tom Smith, SDL Language Technologies: tsmith@sdl.com @Thomas_Smithy