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Content modelling What, why and how
Angus Gordon @WeAreWeave
Content Strategy Melbourne 21 January 2015
I need some words for my website.
OK, what kind of words?
I don’t know.
I think you should change this
label on your menu.
Hmmm…I’ll have to check with the
designer.
I quickly discovered:
• There was no real plan for content in most web projects
• Content was expected to fit design, not the other way around
• Content people weren’t regarded as important stakeholders
Karen McGrane karenmcgrane.com
“Structured content” “Nimble content”
“Adaptive content” “Chunks vs blobs”
“Content modelling”
The Big Bang
But before the big bang…there was the move from static sites to
content management systems
Benefits of CMS• Quicker and easier content updates
• Distributed authorship
• Integration with other software
• Database-driven approach lets you add structure to content, which gives us superpowers (if we choose to accept them)
What is structured content?
Body (Insert event details
here)
Teaser
Description
Location
Date / time
How to book
Title
Photo
What can we do with this structured event?
Automatically add it to a calendar
Decide we don’t like the calendar and replace it with an event listing
Automatically archive it when it’s finished
Display or link to a map of the location
Lay out the information differently on desktop vs mobile
Offer a feed of our events to another website
Can I do all this in my CMS?
Probably…but you may need to research the
specifics.
Stuck? Talk to a developer!
So what is a content model?
A content model specifies the structure of content in your CMS.
It includes the content types that will be available, and the fields (“chunks”) that they consist of.
(Every content type will have its own set of fields.)
Content models range from very simple to very complex.
Content model vs presentation model
• The content model is about how content is stored in the CMS database.
• The presentation model is about how that content is presented to website users. (Sitemaps, wireframes, design mockups etc.)
So let’s get started with some content types
The content types you need depend on what content you have (your content ecosystem), and what you want it to do.
Some common content types
• Blog post
• Event
• Location
• Product
• Service
• Case study
• Publication
• Staff profile
• Member profile
• Project
• Video
• Podcast
• Review
• And yes, “Standard page”
A content type may correspond to a page type, but they are not the same thing.
(Content model vs. presentation model)
Blog post content
type
Blog post page
Blog index page
Home page
Put it all in a diagram
Recipe
Ingredient
Cuisine
Meal
contains
belongs to
is part of
Once you’ve got your content types, start thinking about the
fields you need for each of them.
FieldsA field can represent:
• A standard component (or “chunk”) of the content (text, image, audio, video), or
• An attribute of the content (e.g. categories/tags, metadata), or
• A relationship with another piece of content (reference field)
How much granularity?
Think about what you want to do (or might want to do) with your content.
How much granularity?
But don’t be too constained by the present: sometimes things are worth doing even if they’re not put to use immediately.
LA Times journalists were geocoding articlesfor years before they had a use for it
To document: use a spreadsheet!
Once you’ve drafted your content model, test it with real content and real
presentation models.
Revise and revise again.
What makes a good content modeller?
Content modelling is about finding a balance between:
• Authors & end users • Ambitions & resources • Present & future needs • Structure & flexibility
You don’t need a highly technical vocabulary
You don’t need to know everything about every CMS
You do need an analytical mind
You do need to understand context
You do need imagination
You do need empathy: with authors, with users, with developers
Further reading
Karen McGrane, Content Strategy for Mobile (A Book Apart)
Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Content Everywhere: Strategy and Structure for Future-Ready Content (Rosenfield)
Thank you!@WeAreWeave
DrupalSouth: melbourne2015.drupal.org.au