The (Unfulfilled) Promise of Content Management Systems

1. The (Unfulfilled) Promise of Content Management Systems Victor Lombardi “I know of no place where you can go and read a concise summary of all this tribal wisdom. The only way I know is to go to a conference and talk to your peers. That's the only way to find out where the bodies are buried.” – Tim Bray, co-inventor of XMLhttp://www.cmswatch.com/Features/PeopleWatch/FeaturedPeople/?feature_id=13

2. Agenda • Part I: The CMS Ecology • Part II: Designing for Reusable Content • References • Appendix: A CMS Framework With a focus on web content management, though the concepts apply to other media

3. Victor Lombardi CMS Experience • Capacity: Internal and Consulting • Industries: Healthcare, Financial Services, Retail, Publishing, Telecommunications • Large: Vignette, Interwoven • Medium: SBI.Razorfish Homegrown • Small: Movable Type, Tinderbox

4. Summary • Be realistic about your needs • Use the right system for your needs • Err on the side of a smaller system • Accept the consistency/flexibility tradeoff • Devote extra time to information architecture • Build a modular design with reusable content • Standardize process and design elements as much as possible • Don’t neglect the content in favor of (sexier?) IA and technology • Plan extra time for authoring and migration

5. Part I: What is Content Management? Start by entering content and metadata using an authoring template Logo Then the content is published into the right spot in the publishing template

6. Major Components Publishing User Interface Templates HTML Pages Application Server Authoring Templates Database

7. Process for Designing IA for CMS Business Strategy User Research ContentAudit Info Architecture Definition Publishing Process Research Content/Metadata Model Workflow Authoring Templates Presentation Templates Content Presentation Web Pages

8. Basic CMS Features • Access Control: Who is allowed to do what? • Version Control: Return to a previously saved version • Library: Page templates, images, other assets • Content Repository: Text and other assets stored in a database or XML repository • Publishing Functionality: Creates web pages using content and templates

9. Prime Benefit: Efficiency

10. Benefits (aka promised benefits) • “Single source” of content • Reusability of content • Versioning • Easier maintenance • Consistency • Easier authoring and publishing

11. The CMS Ecology Assumes content management at the institutional, not personal, level • The average CMS project cost is about $6.6 million Computer World, September 30, 2002 • Over 300 Software Packages http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Internet/Site_Management/Content_Management/ • Software packages vary widely: web content mgmt, document mgmt, asset mgmt, workflow, portal publishing, application integration, small/medium/large/enterprise • Initial implementation requires 3 months, overall process can take 9 -12 months or more

12. Venting Frustration Peter Merholz commandeers the CMS Panel at IA Summit 2002 Photo: Erin Malone/Christina Wodtke

13. AIfIA CMS Survey • Conducted January 24-31, 2003 • Invited participation from members of ASIST SIGIA-L, AIfIA, and the ia-cms list • 64 responses collected • Purpose to gauge perceptions of CMS

14. What problems have you experienced when designing for or implementing content management software?

15. Apart from hardware and software what other problems have you experienced with content management systems?

16. Most Popular Responses • “No easy way to integrate controlled vocabularies” • “It should be more clear what kind of content the system is designed to manage: documents, web content, etc.” • “Make it allow for more flexible designs” • “Workflow didn't fit my needs” The diversity of responses reflects the broad – perhaps overly broad – scope of CMS systems

17. Conclusion #1: Prepare Your Organization for CMS Complexity • Requires many skills: writing, gathering assets, designing a templated website and authoring templates, technology implementation, workflow… • Requires coordination across diverse departments and roles • Requires rigorous project management • “A CMS is probably the most complex rollout you and your IT colleagues are likely to have to manage.” – Martin White, CMS Consultant and Writer http://www.econtentmag.com/r5/2002/firewall7_02.html

18. Conclusion #2: Be Realistic About Your Requirements • Go beyond "requirements gathering" to requirements prototyping: prioritize what you need and try using a prototype first • Resist Featuritis or suffer from the resulting complexity

19. Conclusion #3: Tightly integrate design and technology • CMS configuration is technical work and often performed by information technologists • Yet many tasks, for example creating authoring templates, require a well-designed user interface for content authors • Therefore, designers must be proactive and find/learn where their skills are needed

20. Conclusion #4: Don’t Neglect the Content • With all the focus on design and implementation, not enough attention is given to content creation and migration • Ultimately, you are designing a system to deliver content – prioritize it appropriately • Migrating old content will always take longer than you expect

21. Conclusion #5: Build Workflow Organically • Often difficult to model offline processes for online publishing • Try building only what you absolutely need, then use it for a while and fine tune it to your needs • “The 80/20 point suggests that you can do 20 percent of the effort to get 80 percent of the benefit and since effort in this field is so expensive, that's the point we should all be shooting for.” – Tim Bray

22. Conclusion #6: Buy The Right Size Small Enterprise …and 292 packages in between Products are merely examples of this genre; this is not an endorsement. There is no easy escape from the soul searching involved in selecting CMS software.

23. Small is Beautiful Fast • Information Architecture • Business Re-organization • CMS Implementation • Manageable complexity • Can always export your content into a bigger system later • Many good low cost options • Consider using only the part of CMS you need • Can implement it before the need for CMS changes Slow While IA can be done fast enough to serve an organization before it changes, a large CMS implementation can require more time than a business re-organization, which might significantly alter or eliminate the original purpose of the CMS

24. Big is Beautiful Too* • …if it’s right for you • Efficiencies in using one system for many people • Requires standardizing software, content, and often publishing processes • Organizations must be prepared for the significant inter-departmental coordination required • Without an CMS departments might share one or more common sub-system: • Content repository (text stored using XML or a database) • Metadata registry (controlled vocabulary, other metadata) • Library (templates, images, other media assets) * Medium is beautiful as well

25. Part II: Designing for Reusable Content Information modeling that takes advantage of CMS efficiency

26. Think In Terms of Building Blocks • Think of your site as made up of building blocks of content • Having some standard “sizes” make it easier to build the user interface

27. Reusable Content Requires Standardization • Standardize on many levels: • Format of Information • Sites • Metadata • Authoring and Publishing Templates • May require coordination across an organization

28. Start with the User Interface • This keeps the information centered on user needs, instead of having to retrofit a user interface onto a mismatched information model • Helps determine scope: model only the information you need in the system, and avoid an unnecessary large intellectual exercise

29. Feedback Loop • In practice, there’s a feedback loop between the user interface and the information model, but focusing on the user interface helps ensure the right design for the user • You may have to consider several different UIs that share content to make sure the content is reusable

30. Creating Building Blocks • Do a significant portion of the information architecture • Look for places where content is similar • Try to standardize the similar content, or at least reduce the set of possible pieces that can be mixed and matched • Balance the needed user interface elements with author effort to create that content

31. Catalog Building Blocks

32. Granularity • Granularity refers to the size of your building blocks • May vary from document to document • More granularity equals more flexibility in reuse but also more complexity • Hard to increase granularity later on • Try erring toward finer granularity during design, then come implementation time see whether it's still necessary

33. Group Exercise • You have: • One document • Five user interfaces where information from that document appears • Make a list of: • each type of information (e.g. the title of the document) that must be a separate element in the CMS to enable all five user interfaces • Mark whether each type is required or not • Specify how many of each type may is allowed in the system (i.e. cardinality)

34. Modules and HTML Templates • Fewer makes for easier maintenance, and possibly also a more consistent layout which could contribute to usability • Cisco.com: nearly one million pages and about three HTML templates

35. Prototype Content in Page Layouts • Try using different sized content: an average case and at either extreme • Results depend on how HTML is developed Try using different sized content: an average case and at either extreme. Try using different sized content: an average case and at either extreme. Try using different sized content: Try using different sized content: an average case and at either extreme. Try using different sized content: an average case and at either extreme. Try using different sized content: an average case and at either extreme. Try using different sized content: an average case and at either extreme. Try using different sized content: an average case and at either extreme. Try using different sized content: Try using different sized content: an average case and at either extreme. an average case and at either extreme. Try using different sized content: an average case and at either extreme. Try using different sized content: an average case and at either extreme. Try using different sized content: an average case and at

36. Bigger Sites Must Be Smarter Sites • Bigger sites (>100K pages) require more than efficiency, they require automation • Even with reusable content, it’s not cost-effective to touch every piece of content on every type of page • Once content is authored, only touch each type of content • Accomplished via a Semantic CMS…

37. Example: Product Information • We’d like to add a link to a new type of information – “white paper” – on every product page • We don’t want to modify every template for every kind of product page every time we have a change

38. Create Semantic Relationships • Use metadata to describe the relationship among information types

39. Categories of Pages • “Product Pages” include page types: • Product Overview • Product Details • Technical Specifications • Case Studies • Warranty

40. Rule-Powered Pages If Page is tagged as a “Product Page” then… link to related information types

41. Conclusion • Be realistic about your needs • Use the right system for your needs • Err on the side of a smaller system • Accept the consistency/flexibility tradeoff • Devote extra time to information architecture • Build a modular design with reusable content • Standardize process and design elements as much as possible • Don’t neglect the content in favor of (sexier?) IA and technology • Plan extra time for authoring and migration

42. Resources • Books • Content Management Bible http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/076454862X/theasilomarin-20 • Managing Enterprise Contenthttp://www.managingenterprisecontent.com/ • On the Web • CMSWatch http://www.cmswatch.com/ • Metadata & Taxonomies for a More Flexible Information Architecture http://www.asis.org/Conferences/Summit2002/IA_Summit_031602.ppt • Smarter Content Publishing http://www.digital-web.com/features/feature_2002-08.shtml • Ontology Development and Relationship Modeling for Enterprises and Enterprise Websites, Brett Lider (IA Summit 2003) • Email Lists • IA CMS http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ia-cms/ • CMS List http://www.cms-list.org/

43. Thank You Questions? Feedback? http://www.victorlombardi.com/ +1 212-798-6685 SBI.Razorfish http://www.sbiandcompany.com/

44. Appendix: A CMS Framework An initial analysis of your CMS environment

45. Framework Summarized • Establish metrics • Size of company • Project management proficiency • Degree of centralized content management processes • Type of content • Variety of content • Variety of publishing channels • The content to be managed

46. Metrics • Start by listing what you intend to accomplish in terms of goals • Be specific: “We will publish product information in one week instead of two and reduce the costs of staff and computers by 20%.” • Helps focus all decisions downstream

47. Company Size • Bigger companies often have requirements that result in more expensive software Small Medium Big Enterprise < $10K $40K-100K $100K-200K > $200K

48. Project Management Ability • Factor in the formality of your culture and support from management Can Handle the Largest IT Projects None Moderate Don’t attempt, or outsource Consider outside assistance N/A

49. Degree of centralized content management processes • How much do departments need to synchronize authoring and publishing processes? • To what extend do sites/content/applications interact? Many departments author and publish content with no standards One department authors and publishes all content in a standardized way Higher complexity Lower complexity

50. Media Types • Buy a system suited to your needs • Also see CMS Watch: • http://www.cmswatch.com/ContentManagement/Products/ • http://www.cmswatch.com/images/CMSWatchIMChart.pdf Content: Website content Documents Software Code Multimedia System: Web Content Management Document Management Source Code Management Digital Asset Management