the presentation slides - Sara Wachter

workshop:
GETTING MORE
WITH CONTENT
MODELING
sara wachter-boettcher
philly content strategy
sarawb.com/modeling
@sara_ann_marie
let’s talk about
content.
By Eva-Lotta Lamm
‘‘
Being everywhere is challenging. We
want people to feel like they experience
the same news stories everywhere.
— Marisa Gallagher
Creative Director, CNN Digital
our content
is stuck.
flickr.com/photos/wordridden/6125516150
CONTENT
GOES HERE.
www.flickr.com/photos/76029035@N02/6829344565
CONTENT
GOES
HERE.
www.flickr.com/photos/76029035@N02/6829344565
CONTENT
GOES
HERE.
‘‘
[Responsive design] was really a contentfocus exercise. Let’s just say we have this
page that we’re just going to make work
in smaller sizes. Is the content relevant?
And is this in an order that makes sense?
— Livia Labate,
Sr. Director, UXD, Marriott
‘‘
At a time when nearly 60 percent of our
readers access us via mobile devices, we
are missing an opportunity to serve up
content that’s relevant to their locations
because we are not tagging stories with
geographic coordinates.
— New York Times Innovation Report
We have...
•
•
•
•
big blobs of text
lack of hierarchy
wysiwyg horrors
siloed pages
We need...
•
•
•
•
modular chunks
purposeful messages
repeatable patterns
interconnected systems
Content modeling
will help us get
there.
‘‘
It’s not a site map depicting a top-down
view... It’s not a navigational scheme...
A content model is a representation of
the types of content and their interrelationships.
— Cleve Gibbon
CTO, Cognified
It’s a structural
model that matches
your users’ mental
model.
it’s about finding
the right shape.
By Eva-Lotta Lamm
then building
connection.
By Eva-Lotta Lamm
The result:
flexible, reusable,
content that can
go anywhere.
Kin Lane, http://apievangelist.com
TITLE
INTRO
It makes
responsive
design work
better.
SPEC 1
SPEC 2
DESCRIPTION
FEATURES
CTA
It allows us to
design on the Z-axis.
Image from Wren Lanier on A List Apart
It can feed
algorithms and
mashups.
It knows...
• Starting city
• Ending city
• Arrival and
departure
dates
What if...
• Time zone
difference
alert
• Upcoming
weather
• City info
It lets us
use chunks
wherever
we need
them.
What skills does
this take?
structural
editorial
organizational
structural
editorial
organizational
Data modeling
is nothing
new.
From Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL
by Hugh E. Williams and David Lane (O’Reilly, 2003)
What’s different
about content
modeling?
content is more
human, squishy.
www.flickr.com/photos/mujitra/4868415523
Structure may be
less formal, more
conceptual.
structural
editorial
organizational
An editorial eye
helps us see our
content clearly.
Editorial means...
• messaging
• prioritization
• narrative forms
• reader needs
structural
editorial
organizational
Changes affect...
• authors
• editors
• developers
• cms teams
• translation teams
Not just: “What is
the ideal structure
for this content?”
But also: “What’s
actually viable and
sustainable?
let’s get to work:
WHERE DO WE
START?
First, assess what
you’re working
with.
Not just topics,
not just formats,
but content types.
A content type is a
repeatable pattern
for how content
works.
Each type should
be doing something
specific for the
organization—and
the user.
• recipes
• project ideas
• collections
• feature articles
• blog posts
• how-tos and tips
• products
What are each
type’s defining
characteristics?
Categories
Pub date
Title
Body
Slideshow
Comments
Text
Your turn: break
a content type into
its components.
next step:
CONNECTING THE
PIECES
Content modeling
also gives you
options.
From the NYT Innovation Report
We do this by
connecting our
content types.
Bio
Article
Song
Album
Artist
Author
Collection
Theme
Recipe
Collection
Ingredient
Recipe
Collection
Dish
Recipe
This is how we
get to a content
system.
Q&A
@sara_ann_marie
sarawb.com/modeling
Flickr images used via Creative Commons Attribution license unless otherwise noted.
Illustrations by Eva-Lotta Lamm. Used with permission.