Multi Mania: The Future of Content Management

The Future of Content Management Rachel Andrew: Multi Mania 2013
Tuesday, 14 May 13

edgeofmyseat.com Tuesday, 14 May 13

grabaperch.com Tuesday, 14 May 13

Question. Who here generally develops sites using some form of
content management system? Tuesday, 14 May 13

Why don’t we talk about this more? Tuesday, 14 May
13

The trouble with content management systems. Tuesday, 14 May 13

http://storify.com/rachelandrew/cms-horrors “Has your client ever done something really odd using
a CMS? Font horrors, giant images, crazy content? I'd love to know your stories.” Tuesday, 14 May 13

Tuesday, 14 May 13

Clients love to do a little bit of web-designing. Tuesday,
14 May 13

“Make the logo bigger!” No. Tuesday, 14 May 13

“I want to use 24 point Comic Sans” No. Tuesday,
14 May 13

“I want to edit my site in Microsoft Word!” oh
go on then ... Tuesday, 14 May 13

Web designing. Just one of my many skills. Tuesday, 14
May 13

Why are we doing this? Tuesday, 14 May 13

We should not be giving content editors a tool to
use to destroy their site. Tuesday, 14 May 13

If you provide something better than the Word experience of
website content- editing. Your users stop asking for Word. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Tuesday, 14 May 13

We cannot expect non-developers and designers to make sane decisions
about document semantics. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Tuesday, 14 May 13

A CMS is not a website design tool. Tuesday, 14
May 13

If you wouldn’t give the client a copy of Dreamweaver
& their site ﬁles, why give them a CMS that attempts to mimic that experience? Tuesday, 14 May 13

Your CMS should be entirely focussed around creating great quality
content. Tuesday, 14 May 13

You (the web designer) are not the primary user of
CMS software Tuesday, 14 May 13

Content editors are often the forgotten users when we deploy
a CMS. Tuesday, 14 May 13

This is not a new problem. Tuesday, 14 May 13

This is why we can’t have nice things Tuesday, 14
May 13

(probably not) Henry Ford. “If I had asked people what
they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Tuesday, 14 May 13

What should the CMS user experience be like? Tuesday, 14
May 13

1. The CMS helps content editors make good decisions. Tuesday,
14 May 13

In small business and organizations the website content is just
a small part of the job of a busy person. Tuesday, 14 May 13

A CMS is often as much an enemy of good
content as it is of good design. Tuesday, 14 May 13

- Karen McGrane http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2012/08/08/karen-mcgrane-content-strategy-for- mobile/ “Let’s try to make the
job for our content creators as easy as possible, and let’s build the tools and the infrastructure that we need to support them in creating great content.” Tuesday, 14 May 13

2. The CMS allows the designer to make semantic decisions
so the editor doesn’t have to. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Tuesday, 14 May 13

3. The CMS protects the design and architecture decisions made
for the site Tuesday, 14 May 13

When we stop trying to give content editors a web
design tool, we can focus on a system tailored to the type of content they need to create. Tuesday, 14 May 13

If content editors are not worrying about how it looks.
They can add better content more quickly. Tuesday, 14 May 13

You keep control of document semantics - can add Aria
Roles, HTML5 elements, format dates for international audiences. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Content is stored based on what it means rather than
how it looks. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Structured content can be easily repurposed - on the site
or for email, RSS, social media, another website. Tuesday, 14 May 13

A big textarea to ﬁll in page content is a
terrible user experience. Content editors are our users too. Tuesday, 14 May 13

An example. a structured content approach to image management Tuesday,
14 May 13

greenbelt.org.uk Tuesday, 14 May 13

Requirements Make it easy for content editors to explore the
archive and choose images without needing to maintain their own folder of images. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Requirements When an image is used, if the template changes,
we need to be able to regenerate the image at the new size. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Requirements Provide a browseable library of images on the website,
direct from the archive, that again could be regenerated if the templates changed Tuesday, 14 May 13

Requirements Leave the door open to provide a range of
image assets for any one use of an image in a template - to enable retina images or different images for screen widths/ bandwidths. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Greenbelt Media Server Tuesday, 14 May 13

greenbelt.org.uk Tuesday, 14 May 13

Structured Content not a silver bullet. Tuesday, 14 May 13

strong, emphasis, links, blockquotes, lists, inline images and ﬁles Tuesday,
14 May 13

Avoid raw HTML being inserted into your content at all
costs. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Your CMS should actively be removing HTML elements added by
content editors (unless you really love 1997 markup) Tuesday, 14 May 13

Markdown Tuesday, 14 May 13

markitup,jsalvat.com Tuesday, 14 May 13

We are solving the wrong problems. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Our customers ask for faster horses. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Our customers ask for a better WYSIWYG. Tuesday, 14 May
13

Trying to make the CMS behave ‘like Word’ is solving
the wrong problem. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Pouring energy into solutions that tie the content to one
design or one output is solving the wrong problem. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Turning a content management system into a site building tool
rather than a content creation tool is solving the wrong problem Tuesday, 14 May 13

Seeing ourselves as the user, or the visitors to the
website as the user and ignoring content editors means we will continue to try and solve the wrong problems. Tuesday, 14 May 13

The future of CMS? Tuesday, 14 May 13

Karen McGrane - http://karenmcgrane.com/2011/12/14/mobile-content-strategy/ “If we’re going to succeed in
publishing content onto a million different new devices and formats and platforms, we need interfaces that will help guide content creators on how to write and structure their content for reuse.” Tuesday, 14 May 13

Use structured content wherever possible Tuesday, 14 May 13

Avoid directly inserting HTML into content Tuesday, 14 May 13

Treat content editors as your most important user. Tuesday, 14
May 13

Craft better experiences for content editors within the tools you
use Tuesday, 14 May 13

If your CMS falls short tell the maker. Report user
experience issues to open source projects & CMS vendors just as you would any other bug. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Difﬁcult problems Tuesday, 14 May 13

Hoe can we create a more elegant layer on top
of structured content? Tuesday, 14 May 13

Can we enable ofﬂine editing? Tuesday, 14 May 13

Multilingual content? Internationalized sites. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Let’s talk about this. Tuesday, 14 May 13

Photo credits: http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/7018116723/ http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/jk_too/3300092780/ Thank you @rachelandrew http://www.rachelandrew.co.uk/presentations/future-of-cms Tuesday, 14
May 13

Multi Mania: The Future of Content Management

Multi Mania: The Future of Content Management

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