Can links to help systems be tailored for different user roles or audiences in DITA?

November 10, 2023
|By Bryan Tipper

Customizing links to help systems for different user roles or audiences is a valuable feature of DITA, allowing organizations to provide targeted information tailored to specific needs. This approach enhances the user experience and ensures that users get the most relevant and useful content. Here’s how you can achieve this in DITA XML.

Conditional Processing

DITA’s conditional processing capabilities enable you to create links that are conditionally visible based on user roles or audience segments. You can use attributes like keyref and conref to link to content specific to certain roles or audiences. By setting conditions and profiling attributes, you can control which content variations are displayed, ensuring that users see information relevant to their needs.

Profiled Content

In DITA, you can profile your content using elements like <prolog> to specify attributes related to user roles or audience segments. These attributes can then be used to filter and link to the appropriate content. For example, if you have content specifically for beginners and experts, you can profile the content accordingly and link to it using the appropriate profiles, ensuring that users see content that aligns with their experience level.

Example:

Here’s an example of how to tailor links for different user roles in DITA:


<topic id="troubleshooting">
  <title>Troubleshooting Guide</title>
  <body>
    <p>If you're a beginner, refer to the <xref keyref="beginner_content.dita"/>. If you're an expert, check the <xref keyref="expert_content.dita"/> for advanced solutions.</p>
  </body>
</topic>

In this example, the links are conditionally linked to different content, such as “beginner_content.dita” and “expert_content.dita,” depending on the user’s role or proficiency level.