How are visual documentation quality and accessibility improved with DITA in IT?

November 10, 2023
|By Bryan Tipper

DITA XML significantly enhances the quality and accessibility of visual documentation in the realm of IT. This structured approach offers multiple benefits for maintaining high-quality content while ensuring accessibility for a broader audience.

Structured Authoring

One of the primary ways DITA improves visual documentation is through structured authoring. DITA enforces a consistent structure for topics, enabling authors to provide clear titles, descriptions, and metadata. This structure ensures that content, including visual elements, is well-organized, making it easier for readers to find and understand the information they need.

Separation of Content and Presentation

DITA promotes the separation of content and presentation, which is crucial for accessibility. By structuring content separately from its visual representation, it becomes possible to provide alternative text descriptions for images and other visual assets. This ensures that individuals with disabilities who rely on screen readers or other assistive technologies can access the content effectively.

Example:

Here’s an example demonstrating the separation of content and presentation in DITA:


<topic id="network_topology">
  <title>Network Topology</title>
  <shortdesc>Overview of our network configuration.</shortdesc>
  <body>
    <p>Our network is structured as shown in the diagram below:</p>
    <fig href="network-diagram.png" placement="replace" scalefit="yes">
      <alt>Visual representation of our network topology.</alt>
    </fig>
  </body>

In this DITA topic, the “alt” attribute is used to provide an alternative text description for the network diagram, improving accessibility.