Implementing content recommendations and related topics in defense documentation portals using DITA is vital for enhancing the accessibility and usability of the knowledge base. Defense organizations can leverage DITA’s capabilities to suggest relevant content and provide links to related topics, thus aiding users in finding comprehensive information efficiently.

One way to implement content recommendations is by using keyrefs in DITA. Keyrefs allow you to refer to a specific topic or piece of content within another topic. You can create key references that point to related topics, providing context-aware suggestions to users. These references can be configured to appear as recommendations or links to related content.

Example:

Consider a scenario where a defense documentation portal uses DITA to suggest related topics. Below is an example of how keyrefs can be used to achieve this:

<topicref href="dita-topic-A.dita">
  <keyref keys="related-topic-B"/>
</topicref>

In this example, ‘dita-topic-A.dita’ includes a key reference to ‘related-topic-B,’ which signifies that these topics are related. When a user accesses ‘dita-topic-A,’ they might be presented with a recommendation or link to ‘related-topic-B’ for additional information.