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To WYSIWYG or Not WYWIWYGThatis the Question

Tom WentworthChief Marketing Officer, Acquia@twentworth12

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About Me

• 14 years in CMS– CMO at Acquia– Prior CMO at Ektron– Led Technical Sales at

HP/Autonomy/Interwoven

• World Record Holder in CMS Editor demos– *Verification Pending

• @twentworth12 for CMS industry thoughts and general hilarity on Twitter

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Content Strategists like Karen McGrane

CMS Vendors, Products, and

Usersvs.

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“We allow content creators to embed layout and styling information directly into their content.

Unfortunately, the code added by content creators can be at odds with the style sheet, and it’s difficult for developers to parse what’s style and what’s substance.

When it comes time to put that content on other platforms, we wind up with a muddled mess.”- Karen McGrane

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CMS Product Selections are

made on Usability

And that usually means WYSIWYG

Editor Demos

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We’ve Come to Expect Content and Presentation to be Combined

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But This Approach Came With Tradeoffs

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“Make it as Easy as Word!”

• Formatting• Styling• Layout• and Comic

Sans MS!

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“And Let Me Preview the Page When I’m Done!”

17 Source: geocitiesizer

So, What’s Wrong with Making Things Easy?

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…My Name is Tom

…Her name is Blake

… And I’m a Glasshole

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Content as an API

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content strategy is to copywriting as information

architecture is to design

Source: http://boxesandarrows.com/content-strategy-the-philosophy-of-data/

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The Current State of Content Authoring• Structured Authoring– Separation of content from presentation e.g.

“chunks”

• WYSIWYG Authoring– Mixed content and formatting e.g. “blobs”– Embedded Rich Text Editors

• Inline Editing– Content editing within page layout– Can be structured or WYSIWYG

• WYSIWYG Page Layout– Visual page layout

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Structured Authoring

• Complete separation of content from presentation

• Encourages users to think only about content

• Defines content and metadata

• Small design changes require developers

Ektron SmartForms

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Structured with WYSIWYG

• Content types with a mix of “chunks” and “blobs”

• Simple (Title + Body) or complex

• Rich Text Editors– Aloha, CKEditor,

TinyMCE, EditLive, … Drupal

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Inline Editing in Drupal:“Chunks” and “Blobs”

• Allows users to make changes right on the page

• Appeals to less technical authors

• Can be confusing, since a single in-context edit can update lots of pages

Drupal

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WYSIWYG Page Layout

• Let’s the users manage both content and design

• Drag+Drop Page Assembly• Can complete break brand

consistency

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Adobe AEM

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HP/Autonomy TeamSite SitePublisher

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Sitecore

The editing interfaces we offer to users send them important

messages, whether we intend it or not.

They are affordances, like knobs on doors and buttons on telephones.

If the primary editing interface we present is also the visual design seen by site visitors, we are saying: “This page is what you manage! The things

you see on it are the true form of your content.”

- Source: Jeff Eaton, Lullabot

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Solution: Let’s Make Smarter Authors and Pick the Right Tool for the Job

1. To WYSIWYG or not WYSIWYG

– Structured content authoring is the best way to future proof your content strategy

– There are valid use cases combined content and formatting. Brochure-ware websites aren’t going away.

– Editors used to stink, and now they don’t. It’s much easier to enforce clean markup.

2. In-line Editing is Okay. But be Smart About It

3. We Need to Reset Expectations about Content Preview

– WYISWYMGTOPIOC

4. Be very Careful when Using Visual Page Assembly

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and When Selecting Your Next CMSEvaluate Usability, Not Curb Appeal

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Thanks!

Tom WentworthChief Marketing Officer, Acquia@twentworth12