When you automate editorial standards for a technical publications team, you need a strategic approach that ensures clear guidelines, appropriate tools, effective training, and proactive management of challenges.
As a leader, your primary task is to streamline workflows by integrating processes, tools, and training, while maintaining high content quality. In this article, we explore the steps, challenges, strategies, tools, and training necessary to successfully automate and optimize your team’s editorial standards.
Are we automating editorial standards and processes for the right reasons?
The ultimate goal behind automating editorial standards and processes is to ensure consistently high-quality content, faster turnaround times, and reduced errors in technical-publications content life cycles. This means effectively using technology to enforce style guidelines, streamline collaboration, manage content versions, and enhance content delivery.
How do we automate editorial standards and processes?
- Ensure that your editorial standards are clearly defined. Establish comprehensive guidelines for grammar, style, formatting, terminology, and content structure. Ensure these standards align with industry best practices and company branding.
- Identify content management and automation tools. Identify and implement tools that support your team’s specific needs, such as content management systems (CMS), collaborative editing platforms, style checkers, version control systems, and workflow automation tools.
- Implement workflow automation. Design workflows that automate repetitive tasks like content review, editing, formatting, and publishing. Use workflow management tools to assign tasks, track progress, and manage deadlines efficiently.
- Centralize content management. Adopt a robust CMS that allows secure storage, easy retrieval, version control, and collaboration among team members. If budget permits, consider proprietary systems tailored to technical documentation, such as offerings from SDL Tridion or Adobe Experience Manager. If you plan on blog-based systems, consider Drupal or WordPress with plugins.
- Establish review and approval processes. Define clear procedures for content review, approval, and feedback loops. Automate notifications and reminders to stakeholders to streamline the review process.
- Integrate style and grammar checkers. Use tools such as Grammarly, Hemingway Editor, Acrolinx, or other corporate-specific plugins to apply editorial standards in real-time during content creation and editing phases.
- Customize templates and evaluate standards regularly. Develop standardized templates for different types of deliverables (for example, for user manuals or technical guides at a high level, and for topics and articles at a lower modular level). Update style guides regularly to reflect evolving standards and best practices.
- Implement version control. If your content management system does not already provide a version control system, use one such as Git or Perforce to manage changes and track revisions to ensure integrity and auditability content that is created in a collaborative environment.
- Ensure accessibility compliance. Incorporate checks for accessibility, based on WCAG into your writing process to ensure that your content is accessible to users with disabilities.
- Monitor performance metrics. Track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as content quality scores, turnaround times, and user feedback to continuously optimize editorial processes.
What about the challenges (and strategies)?
Challenges | Strategies |
---|---|
Resistance to Change: Some team members might be reluctant to adopt new tools or workflows. Address resistance through clear communication, training, and demonstrating the benefits of automation. | Gradual Implementation: Introduce automation incrementally to allow team members to adapt gradually. Start with pilot projects or less critical content types before scaling automation across the entire workflow. |
Complex Content Requirements: Technical publications often involve complex subject matter and diverse audience needs. Develop flexible automation solutions that accommodate varying content types and formats. | Collaborative Approach: Involve team members in the automation planning and implementation process. Solicit feedback, address concerns, and encourage participation to foster a sense of ownership and collaboration. |
Integration Issues: Ensuring seamless integration between different tools and systems, such as your CMS, version control, style checkers, can be challenging. Choose tools with robust APIs and compatibility or consider custom development solutions. | Feedback Mechanisms: Establish mechanisms for continuous feedback on automated processes. Encourage team members to report issues, suggest improvements, and share best practices to refine automation strategies over time. |
Maintaining Quality: Automation should not compromise content quality. Implement rigorous testing and validation processes to ensure that automation supports and complements editorial standards. | Quality Assurance: Implement automated quality checks and manual reviews in tandem to ensure content meets editorial standards and user expectations. Develop clear criteria for assessing content quality and consistency. |
Skill Gaps: Not all team members might be proficient or comfortable with automation tools or new technologies. Provide comprehensive training and ongoing support to bridge skill gaps and build confidence. | Continuous Learning and Development: Offer regular training sessions, workshops, and access to online resources to empower team members with the skills needed to effectively use automation tools. |
What kind of training will our writers need?
- Tool-Specific Training. Offer hands-on training sessions to familiarize writers with CMS, style checkers, version control systems, and collaborative platforms they will use daily.
- Writing for Automation. Train writers on writing styles suited for automation, such as structured content writing techniques (such as DITA XML), to facilitate content reuse.
- Accessibility Training. Educate writers on accessibility guidelines and best practices to ensure content is inclusive and compliant with accessibility standards.
- Quality Assurance Training. Provide training on using automated tools for quality assurance, including how to interpret feedback and implement suggested improvements. Consider implementing a peer-review process as well, if you plan to automate editorial standards completely.
- Continuous Learning. Encourage ongoing professional development through access to webinars, workshops, and resources related to writing, editing, and automation technologies.
See this post for some specific ideas around such training (opens in a new tab).
…and tools used for automation?
Here’s a starter list of tools (generated using ChatGPT) that you can use to achieve several goals mentioned in this article.
Content Management Systems (CMS):
- WordPress: Flexible and widely used with extensive plugin support.
- Drupal: Customizable and scalable for complex content management needs.
- Adobe Experience Manager: Enterprise-level CMS with robust content creation and management capabilities.
Workflow Automation Tools:
- Asana: Task management tool with workflow automation features.
- Trello: Kanban-style project management tool for organizing tasks and workflows.
- Jira: Issue tracking and project management tool often used for software development but adaptable for editorial workflows.
Style and Grammar Checkers:
- Grammarly: AI-powered writing assistant for grammar, spelling, style, and tone suggestions.
- Hemingway Editor: Highlights complex sentences and suggests simpler alternatives for readability.
- Acrolinx: Provides comprehensive writing analysis with focus on style, grammar, terminology, tone, and clarity.
Version Control Systems:
- Git: Distributed version control system for tracking changes in source code and documentation.
- SVN (Subversion): Centralized version control system suitable for managing large repositories of documentation.
Collaborative Editing Platforms:
- Google Workspace (formerly G Suite): Offers real-time collaboration on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
- Microsoft SharePoint: Document management and collaboration platform integrated with Microsoft Office tools.
Accessibility Tools:
- Deque: Provides accessibility testing and remediation solutions for digital content.
- axe Accessibility Checker: Browser extension for checking web accessibility compliance against WCAG guidelines.
By leveraging automation, teams can enhance efficiency, maintain consistency, and deliver high-quality technical content that meets user expectations. Continuous evaluation, adaptation, and learning are essential to optimizing automated workflows and ensuring long-term success in technical publications.