Group Wellesley Wire

Leximation, Inc. has announced that the DITA-FMx 1.0 plug-in has been released. This plug-in improves upon the DITA support provided with FrameMaker 8, including increased coverage of the DITA specification and improvements to the authoring experience.

The DITA specification presents rather steep challenges to tool implementers. The Leximation plug-in further enhances FrameMaker as an option for DITA authoring and publishing. Given the complexities of XSL-FO for generating PDF output, and the recent uncertainty regarding PDF support in the DITA Open Toolkit, FrameMaker should be especially appealing for organizations that need high-quality PDF output from DITA.

The DITA-FMx 1.0 plug-in supports DITA version 1.0. Support for DITA 1.1 is forthcoming, and will be provided at no charge to those who purchase DITA-FMx 1.0.

If you enjoyed the film Helvetica (or at least find it interesting that somebody produced a documentary about a typeface), you may enjoy The Road to Clarity in the Sunday, August 12 New York Times Magazine section (registration required). The article tells the story of the development and current deployment of Clearview, a new typeface designed specifically for highway signage.

Central to the story is how typographic details like counter shapes (the closed spaces inside lower-case a, e, and o) and x-height (the height of the lower-case x) can have a profound effect on readability under real-world highway conditions (e.g., distance and darkness).

In user tests, signs that were legible at 700 feet in the current standard signage typeface, Highway Gothic, were readable in Clearview at 900-1,000 feet.

Thus far, 20 U.S. states have adopted Clearview, and are deploying the new typeface as current signs are replaced.

I was pleased to see the usability profession featured in this morning’s New York Times. See Technology’s Untanglers: They Make It Really Work (New York Times, Sunday, July 8, 2007). The article appeared in the Times’ Fresh Starts, a monthly column about “emerging jobs and job trends.”

The (quite positive) article includes several quotes from usability legend Ginny Redish. Watch this space for a review of Dr. Redish’ most recent book, Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works.