4. What we are going to learn
1. Writing: Basic web writing
techniques
2. Break it Down: How to slice your
content into types and elements
3. HTML 5: A smarter “semantic” web
4. Markdown: web code for writers
5. Assets: Putting Omniupdate to work
for you
5. Justify Your Existence
• Christopher Spencer, 15 years in the
communication game: Print, online, analytics
• Former newspaper reporter for the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette (1999 – 2004), Morning News of
Northwest Arkansas (2005 – 2009), El Dorado
News Times (1998 – 1999)
• Founded Ozarks Unbound (2009 – 2011) and
WordCamp Fayetteville (Fourth year this weekend)
• Work currently as a digital media strategist for the
University of Arkansas (2011+). Taught digital
journalism class last semester.
13. Break it Down
1. Determine if your
content repeats
2. If so, what is your
content type?
3. What are the
elements that
make up your
content type?
14. Break it Down
Recipe
• Ingredients
• Directions
• Picture
• Prep time
• Related recipes
• Tags to relate
to other data
15. Break it Down
Staff Capsule
• Picture
• Email
• Phone number
• Bio statement
• Job title
• Department
16. Break it Down
Win – Win
• Content is ready
for a database
• User experiences
content
consistently
17.
18. HTML Content Tags
Tag Description
<audio> Defines sound content
<video> Defines a video or movie
<article> Defines an article
<aside> Defines content aside from the
page content
<figure> Specifies self-contained
content, like illustrations, diagrams,
photos, code listings, etc.
<figcaption> Defines a caption for a
<figure> element
<details> Defines additional details that
the user can view or hide
22. Assets in Omniupdate
COPE for the university
•Assets are reusable content such as text, images,
media, code blocks, links, etc. Reusable content is
convenient when working with multiple files that
require the same information. As reusable
content, Assets allow users to easily change an
item that is used on several pages. Once
an Asset is updated and published, all the pages
using, or "subscribed" to, the Asset will also be
updated and published. - OmniUpdate
Heard of responsive design? We’re going to talk about Flexible Content, Responsive Content: Adaptable content that is future ready Reusable content
Minimize effort and Maximize distribution Launched in 2002 and still the CMS centerpiece in 2013 Decoupled content from presentation Leverage editorial time and make it flow around the presentation rocks – NOT BLOCKS
This is a huge area with plenty of advice online. Tons of great resources online that will give you all the Top 10 Tips you need … and more than you need.
It’s not Strunk’s Elements of Style, but it’s a good emerging ruleset for online writing. Has grammar suggestions and a nice section on developing a voice for your copy. Webpage coding, Search Engine Optimization Worth your time to own a copy. I used excerpts in my Multimedia Journalism class
Do not over write. In the same way that people talk about “Clean” design. Provide clean content with not overpacking any one sentence with concepts.
Know your message and what you intend to convey with your copy and just make your point. Don’t tease with your message. Put your best content first. There are exceptions, but like a great artist, know you are breaking the rules
If you have three or more items, consider using a bulleted list, order or unordered. It immediately conveys visual sequence.
HTML Markup time H1 through h6 are markup tags that tell the browser, the search engine and the viewer that this is a of more importance than a regular word in a paragraph Immediately conveys themes in your copy. Divides it nicely into chunks and also adds in SEO prioritization.
I said future ready, right? Well HTML 5 is the cutting edge and does a lot of cool things like tell a browser contextually what kind of content it is dealing with. HTML 4 was very much about telling the browser WHERE the element was … is it a header, footer, sidebar? HTML 5 is even more smart, giving new depth to the “Semantic Web” ideal
All of these elements make the web browsers smarter by telling them what’s the relationship of one thing to another. With an article, we always know that the <aside> is a companion piece of copy that needs to be given a subservient but related presentation to the <article> Divorcing semantics from presentation. We have an ever decreasing ability to tell a user how they will see something presented.
Created in 2004 by the open source community Markdown’s philosophy is to make code easier to read in a plain text fashion. It also lets writers say to designers and developers where the emphasis and weight belongs. Content creators are the experts in how their content is structured. Now they can add notes that translate directly into HTML code.
Jeremy Rex – bought me a drink or two and usually donning a fedora – which we won’t hold against him.
This is what sold me on OU, frankly.
Web Content – chunks of data that might include text, an image and other elements, like a staff capsule for example. Plain text – usually a small piece of text data that can be inserted consistently anywhere. Source code – mostly won’t need to worry about this as content creators and managers Image gallery – consistent use of an image – Dean gets replaced with a single publish to the asset Deanpic Managed forms – create a single contact me form and just distribute everywhere on your pages Very exciting. Talk to Bryon Speller about more of this type of stuff. Remember our goal is to liberate your message and make it flow like water. Brian wants that as well.
Sure, content like water, but water flow into the containers laid out for it. I want you to have the flexibility of water but to be able to determine your own destiny for your content … walking on water to where you want to go.
