Separate content from presentation

The following are the primary reasons why the Avaya Global Information Solutions (GIS) team moved to an XML environment:

• Separate content from presentation

• Structural integrity

• Semantic markup

In an XML environment, the creation of the content is separated from the presentation of that content, which provides the following benefits:

• Writers work with greater efficiency when they no longer have responsibility for presentation.

• Common look and feel is achieved because the production system applies presentation styles rather than individual authors.

• Content is easier to include in multiple information products.

• Translations costs are reduced because multiple outputs are derived from the same source and content production is done by the production system rather than by translations vendors.

• Presentation is out of the way until it is needed.

• Vendor independence; no conversion required to move to another vendor.

Structural integrity

With XML, content has a prescribed structure to which the authors must adhere. With this, authors can focus more on the actual content, since the topic structure prescribes the elements that must be included. Structural integrity has the following additional benefits:

• Despite the change in ownership from one writer to another, document structure remains consistent.

• Documents across projects owned by different writers remain consistent.

• Consistent structure makes it much easier to get consistent, successful results from automated production tools.

Semantic markup

In XML, DTDs can express the semantics of a writing methodology through element naming and element content rules. This enables a shift in focus of the writing effort from presentation to the underlying semantics of the content. This shift in focus can enhance an author's ability to create content that more closely adheres to the intent of the writing methodology. Each author must consider the purpose of the content they're creating, which helps produce more relevant content and reduces the inclusion of irrelevant content.