Information typing has a long history of use in the technical documentation field to improve information quality. It is based on extensive research and experience, including Robert Horn's Information Mapping and Hughes Aircraft's STOP (Sequential Thematic Organization of Proposals) technique. Note that many DITA topic types are not necessarily closely connected with traditional Information Mapping.
Information typing is a practice designed to keep documentation focused and modular, thus making it clearer to readers, easier to search and navigate, and more suitable for reuse. Classifying information by type helps authors perform the following tasks:
DITA currently defines a small set of well-established information types that reflects
common practices in certain business domains, for example, technical communication and
instruction and assessment. However, the set of possible information types is unbounded.
Through the mechanism of specialization, new information types can be defined as
specializations of the base topic type (
You need not use any of the currently-defined information types. However, where a currently-defined information type matches the information type of your content, the currently-defined information type should be used, either directly, or as a base for specialization. For example, information that is procedural in nature should use the task information type or a specialization of task. Consistent use of established information types helps ensure smooth interchange and interoperability of DITA content.