Architecting Content for the Unknown Consumer

TM
Architecting your
Content for the
Unknown Consumer
19.10.16
Richard Jones, Technical Director
@richardjones @inviqa
Digital Publishing Innovation Summit, London 2016

Your customer’s behaviour is
changing faster than you are
TM
#DigiPub @richardjones @inviqa

You need to keep pace with
requirements you may not
even be aware of
TM

Being Prepared
Why today’s web is
unpredictable
What’s likely to change
How you can be ready now

The Known Consumer
Anything you are testing for
Assume everything else is unknown

“Internet of Things”

Deﬁning the IoT
Headline devices
Smart Refrigerators
Household domestic appliances

Beyond the headlines
Media
Advertising
Billboards

Environmental monitoring
Infrastructure management
Manufacturing
Energy Management
Medical and Healthcare

Consumer
Wearable
Quantiﬁed Self
Smart Retail

5.5 million new things get
connected to the internet each day
(Gartner)

How many of these are
content consumers?

Vodafone:
Store kiosks driven
from central content
repository

Amazon Echo:
A revolutionary
content consumer

Some future gazing…

What if you could correct at source?

Could content save a life?
A Smart device could
check for itself if it had
been recalled

Always up to date
A self driving car could
consume many types of
content to improve its
abilities

How we present this data is the key

Software is not good at interpreting
meaning

Unstructured vs Structured Data

Use of structured data for other purposes

How do we support these unknown
consumers?

Many people still think in the
“page” model
Pages may have semantic
elements
At best these are signals for
interpretation
The Web as Pages

We need a Content Management System
to allow us to move beyond “page”
thinking
Beyond the page

Content model and structure
Delivery / Access mechanism
Essential ingredients

Content creators need to think beyond
pages
Relinquish control of layout
Challenging the status quo
Challenges

A debate well covered elsewhere
aka Battle for the Body Field
A conversation that is still ongoing
Blobs vs Chunks

Also a well covered topic
Very relevant to our scenarios
The use case for context speciﬁc content is
valid here
Adaptive vs Responsive

Do we want to?

Open Data
Paid API access
Metered API access
Business Models

Value added service
Offer content in a usable format
Business Models

Is “naked” content the alternative in
the age of the Ad Blocker?

Structure the content model
Expose content using a documented API
Steps to Prepare

Conceptually can start quite simple
Complexity tends to escalate as you work
through the relationships
The Content Model

Example
Article
•Headline
•Body
•Image

Content Model theory

Object Oriented Programming
Well understood in the computer science
world
Some principles could be applied to
content modelling
Comparing to OOP

Objects which may contain data in the
form of ﬁelds
Code in the form of methods
Single responsibility principle
Deﬁnition

A content type should be as simple as
possible
It should be for one purpose only
Do not assume dependencies that may not
be present
A ﬁeld should have one clear purpose
Loose interpretation

Content Modelling Antipatterns

Content Antipattern #1
Non-content content

Content types that provide nothing in
isolation
“Signposts”, “Jumps”, “Shortcuts”
Non-Content Content

Instead use alternative views of the
referenced content:
e.g. Teasers, List view
Non-Content Content

Godzilla Content Type

Multiple use cases
Violates the single
responsibility
Reluctance to have
multiple content types
leads to a monster
content type

Instead:
Don’t be afraid to have
more smaller content
types
Consider relationships
Think carefully about
single responsibility

Field Ambiguity

Using a ﬁeld name that doesn’t make
immediate sense to the editor
Fields that are used for different things in
difference scenarios
Lead to loss of structure
Field Ambiguity

Instead: Agree clear naming with all
content stakeholders
Create clear guidelines / help text.
Field Ambiguity

Using Content for Logic

Fields that are not really content
Designed to affect the layout of the “page”
via template logic
Logic Fields

Don’t mix layout with content
The application theme layer can handle
this for you.
Logic Fields

What Next?

Use a CMS with a good Content
Model Toolset

Educate Stakeholders regarding the
beneﬁts of structured content

Split content from design

Handle creative objections early

Spend time on the content model

Allow more time than you think you need
Focus on the future - and abstract
Simplify the design - leave no room for
interpretation
Consistency of ﬁelds - eg date formats
Content Model

Think through all possible relationships
Break content into the smallest possible
pieces
Hold the smallest amount of formatting
possible
Content Model

Future proof your content

Future proof your content
Prepare your content for the
future

Ensure portability

Embrace the unknown and
create a legacy

TM
Questions?
Richard Jones
Technical Director
Inviqa
@richardjones
@inviqa

TM
Business first

Architecting Content for the Unknown Consumer

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Architecting Content for the Unknown Consumer

Similar to Architecting Content for the Unknown Consumer (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Architecting Content for the Unknown Consumer