content modelling: what, why and how

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