Slides from a talk given at Content Strategy Melbourne on 21 January 2015.

1. Content modelling
What, why and how
Angus Gordon
@WeAreWeave
Content Strategy Melbourne
21 January 2015

2. I need some words
for my website.
OK, what kind of
words?
I don’t know.

3. I think you
should change this
label on your
menu.
Hmmm…I’ll have
to check with the
designer.

4. 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

6. Karen McGrane
karenmcgrane.com

7. “Structured content”
“Nimble content”
“Adaptive content”
“Chunks vs blobs”
“Content modelling”

8. The Big Bang

9. But before the big bang…there
was the move from static sites to
content management systems

10. 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)

11. What is structured content?
Body
(Insert event details
here)
Teaser
Description
Location
Date / time
How to book
Title
Photo

12. 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

13. Can I do all this in my CMS?
Probably…but you may
need to research the
specifics.
Stuck? Talk to a developer!

14. 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.

15. 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.)

16. 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.

17. 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”

18. 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

19. Put it all in a
diagram

20. Recipe
Ingredient
Cuisine
Meal
contains
belongs to
is part of

21. Once you’ve got your content
types, start thinking about the
fields you need for each of them.

22. Fields
A 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)

23. How much granularity?
Think about what you want to do
(or might want to do) with your
content.

24. 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.

25. LA Times journalists were geocoding articles
for years before they had a use for it

26. 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.

27. What makes a good
content modeller?

28. Content modelling is about finding a
balance between:
• Authors & end users
• Ambitions & resources
• Present & future needs
• Structure & flexibility

29. You don’t need a highly technical vocabulary

30. You don’t need to know everything about
every CMS

31. You do need an analytical mind

32. You do need to understand context

33. You do need imagination

34. You do need empathy: with authors,
with users, with developers

35. Further reading
Karen McGrane, Content Strategy for Mobile
(A Book Apart)
Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Content Everywhere:
Strategy and Structure for Future-Ready Content
(Rosenfield)

36. Thank you!
@WeAreWeave
DrupalSouth: melbourne2015.drupal.org.au