Talk given at CS Forum Melbourne 2016

1. Content modelling
Making content smarter
Angus Gordon
Weave (weaveweb.com.au)

2. What is content modelling,
and why should I care?
Why am I the right person
to do content modelling?
Where do I start?

3. What is content modelling,
and why should I care?

8. If this was how Facebook
collected information, they
couldn’t...
● Deliver content related to user interests
● Connect users to other users
● Adapt user profile pages to different devices
● Promote users’ birthdays to their friends
● Sell targeted advertising

9. What makes
Facebook smart is
structured content.

10. Structured content is chunked

11. Structured content is constrained
● Formats
● Allowed values
● Sizes / character counts

12. Structured content is machine
readable (where relevant)
2009-03-23

13. Most website
content is
unstructured or
minimally
structured.

15. Content modelling
is identifying
opportunities to turn
unstructured into
structured content...

16. ...and documenting
those opportunities
as a coherent
system, the content
model.

17. ● Content types
● Fields (attributes,
properties)
● Relationships

19. Why should I care?
● Stop your content breaking on mobile
● Build relationships between content items
● Help authors keep content consistent
● Single source of truth means easier maintenance
● Make your content future ready

20. The content model
ultimately needs to
be built into the
CMS.

21. So why don’t we just
leave it to the
developers?

22. Why am I the right person
to do content modelling?

23. Typical workflow
Wireframes
Developer
Content model

24. Results
● Assumptions
● Ambiguous or unclear labels
● Under- or over-engineered solutions
● Hacks and workarounds
● Poor usability for authors

25. Collaborative workflow
Wireframes
Content strategist + developer
Content model

26. A content model
communicates
intention and shared
language. It doesn’t
have to be a
rigorous spec.

28. What makes
someone good at
content modelling?

30. Analytical

31. Context

32. Empathy

33. How do I start?

34. Three questions
● What are my content types?
● What fields do they need?
● What are their relationships?

35. Three questions
● What are my content types? → High level audit
● What fields do they need? → Deep selective audit
● What are their relationships? → Diagram

36. Three things to
remember:

37. 1. A content model is
not an ontology.

39. In other words,
model what’s
useful, don’t try to
model all the things.

40. 2. Be presentation
agnostic.

42. 3. Test with real
content early and
often.

45. Thank you!
@angusgmelb
@WeAreWeave
http://www.meetup.com/We-Are-Content-Strategy/