The history of DITA is the history of its many powerful characteristics - modularity, structured writing, information typing, object-oriented, inheritance, specialization, simplified XML, single-source, topic-based, conditional processing, component publishing, task-orientation, content reuse, multi-channel, localization-friendly, usability, consistency, minimalist.

If you don't understand all DITA characteristics, you may not have analyzed the DITA Business Case properly - for your organization, or for yourself if you are a professional writer.

You don't have to know how to do all these things to use DITA, but if there is no one in your organization who knows why you should use them, you may have a problem. If you have already been doing some of these things, you will want to know how DITA now incorporates them.

Our history of DITA is for members only.

• Before 1960
• The 1960's and '70's - Programmed Learning, STOP, Information Mapping, Advance Organizers
• The 1980's - IBM Task Orientation and Online Help
• The 1990's - IBM Minimalism and User-Centered Design
• The 2000's - IBM DITA
• OASIS DITA
  • DITA 1.0
  • DITA 1.1 - Bookmap
  • DITA 1.2 - eLearning

A History of Technical Communications in the U.S., by R. John Brockmann.

History of Outlining (and STOP).

Quick Reader Comprehension (1961).

Hughes STOP - Sequential Thematic Organization of Publications (1960+).

Mapping Hypertext, Robert Horn, Lexington Institute (1989).

The Nurnberg Funnel, John Carroll, MIT Press(1990).

IBM Improving usability of publications (1981). Task-orientation HTML version

Managing Your Documentation Projects, by JoAnn Hackos (Wiley, 1994).

Robert Horn, Visual Language (1998).

Minimalism Beyond the Nurnberg Funnel, John Carroll, MIT Press(1998).

Two approaches to modularity (1999). Robert Horn compares structured writing to Hughes STOP.

Review of the Nurnberg Funnel(1999) Robert Horn compares structured writing to Minimalism.

Cisco/Clark Reusable Learning Objects.

Robert Horn Powerpoint on Visual Language.(2003).

Developing Quality Technological Information: A Handbook for Writers and Editors (2nd Edition) , by Gretchen Hargis, Michelle Carey, Ann Kilty Hernandez, Polly Hughes, Deirdre Longo, Shannon Rouiller, Elizabeth Wilde (IBM Press, Information Management Series, 2004).

Information Development: Managing Your Documentation Projects, Portfolio, and People, by JoAnn Hackos (Wiley, 2006).