To DITA or not to DITA

To DITA, or not to DITA: that is the question:
Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer
The mess unmanaged content causes,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?

Sorry, Shakespeare fans, but this is how many technical communicators feel these days. Almost all technical writers know that Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is a buzzword somehow related to improving content reuse and single-source techniques.

The big question, though, is whether DITA is a good solution for you. After all, we all know that templates can bring some unification to our documents. We all use conditional text to handle product variations. Both MS Word and Adobe FrameMaker users know about techniques that enable them to assemble documents by importing individual files into one big document. The ability to generate multiple output formats is a feature that many authoring tools, including RoboHelp and Flare, provide. So why should we care?

I don't want to say anything bad about any ofl these tools. In many cases, they can get the job done. Problems begin to arise when your content requirements go beyond the capabilities of their features. I know of many documentation teams that faced the nearly impossible challenge of adjusting traditional single-source techniques to their changing documentation requirements.

To understand whether or not it is time to make a shift and begin thinking about DITA, I usually advise our clients to answer a few questions using this simple matrix:

Question DITA may be a good solution, if the answer is... A non-DITA solution may be right, if the answer is...
Do you reuse your content extensively? Yes No
Do you customize content to various products, partners, or customers? Yes No
What is the level of granularity of reusable content? Individual sections within chapters Entire chapters
Do you need to enforce consistent structure to your documents? Yes No
Do you have multiple writers in your team? Yes No
Do you translate documentation? Yes No
Do you deliver documentation in multiple formats? Yes No
Do you need to publish documentation on-the-fly based on a user profile? Yes No

If you answered "yes" to all or most of these questions, there is a good chance that DITA can make you more productive. It does not really matter if you are a lone writer in a company or a part of a documentation team – DITA can be beneficial in both cases. It is also important to ask yourself whether or not your current tools and techniques are good enough to make your work effective. If there is something that can make your life easier, why not to use it?