Re: Rationale behind separate TechArticle / HowTo types?

Hi Joe,

The simple answer to your question is that there was probably very little
connection between the recent development of the HowTo
<http://schema.org/HowTo> type and its predecessor (by a long time)
TechArticle <http://schema.org/TechArticle>.  It certainly escaped my
notice that ‘*Example: How-to topics, step-by-step*,’ was part of the
TechArticle description.

For your article that has procedural info use case I would agree that a
multi-type entity would be the most suitable solution.

I suggest that the description of TechArticle is tweaked a little to
reference such a use, and an example or two added.

~Richard.




Richard Wallis
Founder, Data Liberate
http://dataliberate.com
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis
Twitter: @rjw

On 17 September 2017 at 16:37, Joe Pairman <joepairman@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I often work with structured product documentation and regulatory content:
> procedural info, troubleshooting, howtos, and so on. Sometimes, but not
> always, it's of a technical nature.. I'm working on automated transforms of
> this content to relevant Schema.org markup, and I'm a bit confused with the
> presence of two seemingly similar types:
>
>    - TechArticle (described as being for How-to topics, step-by-step,
>    procedural troubleshooting, specifications, etc.)
>    - The actual HowTo type
>
> TechArticle has a couple of properties that would be very helpful in this
> kind of content: dependencies (which in my domain would often be called
> prerequisites), and the pending "speakable" property. Being a subType of
> Article, it should also work well with Google's features around that:
> https://developers.google..com/search/docs/data-types/articles
> <https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/articles>
>
> On the other hand, if I need detailed, step-by-step procedures, the HowTo
> type looks pretty much essential, with its sections, steps, directions, and
> tips (though nothing in the way of examples, I see).
>
> If I have a technical or engineering article that has procedural info,
> should I use a multi type entity, to get the properties of both TechArticle
> and HowTo? Also, what was the rationale behind creating separate types for
> these two? Was it that there might be a technical article that isn't
> procedural, or a procedural piece that isn't technical? If this is the
> case, I wonder if it would be possible to tweak the description for
> TechArticle to make this clearer?
>
> Thanks in advance for any info / tips.
>
> Joe
>