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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 XML http://www.cmswatch.com/Features/PeopleWatch/FeaturedPeople/?feature_id=13

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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

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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

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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

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Part I: What is Content Management?

Then the content is published into the right spot in the publishing template

Start by entering content and metadata using an authoring template

Logo

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ApplicationServer

Major Components

Database

AuthoringTemplates

Publishing User

InterfaceHTML Pages

Templates

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Process for Designing IA for CMS

Authoring Templates

Content/MetadataModel

PresentationTemplates

Web Pages

User Research

Info ArchitectureDefinition

Business Strategy

Workflow

Content Presentation

ContentAudit

Publishing ProcessResearch

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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

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Prime Benefit: Efficiency

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

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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

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Venting Frustration

Peter Merholz commandeers the CMS Panel at IA Summit 2002

Photo: Erin Malone/Christina Wodtke

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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

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

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Workflow didn't fit my needs

Overall too complex

Didn't allow enough customization

Commercial software required too much time toimplement

Difficult to integrate with other systems

Difficult to evaluate vendors

Not flexible enough to accomodate my design

Poor process for migrating old content

Required too much customization

Commercial software too expensive

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

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Finding skilledprogrammers

Maintaining content

Combining contentcomponents on pages

Creating a templateddesign

Designing a workflow

Overall projectcomplexity

Structuring metadata

Determiningrequirements

Training authors andeditors

Migrating old content

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Conclusion #6: Buy The Right Size

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.

Small Enterprise

…and 292 packages in between

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Small is Beautiful

• 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

Fast

Slow

•Information Architecture•Business Re-organization•CMS Implementation

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

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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

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Part II: Designing for Reusable Content

Information modeling that takes advantage of CMS efficiency

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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

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Reusable Content Requires Standardization

• Standardize on many levels:– Format of Information– Sites– Metadata– Authoring and Publishing Templates

• May require coordination across an organization

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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

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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

InfoType # InfoCategory InfoType O/C Type Descriptionmaxlength(in chars)

Product Overview328 Overview Product Overview 1 Text 3000

Product Details

034 Details Product Architecture 0-1 Text 3000Product Architecture Diagram 0-1 Image

Release History

049 Release History Release No 1+ Controlled, Numeric

050 Release History Release Date 1+ Date

051 Release History Product Release Name 1+ Text 50

301 Release History What's New With This Release 1 Text 1000

048 Release History Release Enhancements 1+ Text 1000

Reliabilty and Performance

119 Reliability and Performance Reliability Overview 0-1 Text 1000

121 Reliability and Performance Performance/Error Rates 0-1 Bulleted text 1000

Security

122 Security Security Features 0-1 Text 3000

123 Security Security Issues 0-1 Bulleted text 1000

Manufacturing Information

066 Manufacturing Information Manufacturing Information 1 Text 1000

Packaging032 Packaging Entitlements 0-1 Bulleted text 1000

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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

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Catalog Building Blocks

InfoType # InfoCategory InfoType O/C Type Descriptionmaxlength(in chars)

Product Overview328 Overview Product Overview 1 Text 3000

Product Details

034 Details Product Architecture 0-1 Text 3000Product Architecture Diagram 0-1 Image

Release History

049 Release History Release No 1+ Controlled, Numeric

050 Release History Release Date 1+ Date

051 Release History Product Release Name 1+ Text 50

301 Release History What's New With This Release 1 Text 1000

048 Release History Release Enhancements 1+ Text 1000

Reliabilty and Performance

119 Reliability and Performance Reliability Overview 0-1 Text 1000

121 Reliability and Performance Performance/Error Rates 0-1 Bulleted text 1000

Security

122 Security Security Features 0-1 Text 3000

123 Security Security Issues 0-1 Bulleted text 1000

Manufacturing Information

066 Manufacturing Information Manufacturing Information 1 Text 1000

Packaging032 Packaging Entitlements 0-1 Bulleted text 1000

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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

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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)

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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

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Prototype Content in Page Layouts• Try using different sized content: an

average case and at either extreme• Results depend on how HTML is

developedTry 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. 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

Try using different sized content: an average case and at either extreme.

Try using different sized content:

an average case and at either extreme.

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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…

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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

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Create Semantic Relationships• Use metadata to describe the

relationship among information types

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Categories of Pages

• “Product Pages” include page types:– Product Overview– Product Details– Technical Specifications– Case Studies– Warranty

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Rule-Powered Pages

If Page is tagged as a “Product Page” then…

link to related information types

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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

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Resources• Books

– Content Management Bible http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/076454862X/theasilomarin-20

– Managing Enterprise Content http://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/

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Thank You

Questions? Feedback?http://www.victorlombardi.com/+1 212-798-6685

SBI.Razorfishhttp://www.sbiandcompany.com/

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Appendix: A CMS Framework

An initial analysis of your CMS environment

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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

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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

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Company Size

Small Medium Big Enterprise

< $10K $40K-100K $100K-200K > $200K

• Bigger companies often have requirements that result in more expensive software

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Project Management Ability

• Factor in the formality of your culture and support from management

NoneModerate

Don’t attempt, or outsource

Can Handle the Largest IT Projects

Consider outside assistance

N/A

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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

Higher complexity Lower complexity

One department authors and publishes all content in a standardized way

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Media Types

• Also see CMS Watch: • http://www.cmswatch.com/ContentManagement/Products/• http://www.cmswatch.com/images/CMSWatchIMChart.pdf

Content:

System: Digital Asset

Management

Source Code

Management

Document Managemen

t

Web Content

Management

MultimediaSoftware Code

DocumentsWebsite content

• Buy a system suited to your needs

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Variation in Content

• More heterogeneous content requires more tough standardization decisions

Easier to standardize

Harder to standardize

Low level of variation among content items, pages, site sections, and sites

High level of variation among content items, pages, site sections, and sites

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Variation in the Publishing Channels• A higher number and heterogeneity of

channels requires more granular, standardized content

Courser granularity Finer granularity

One homogenous site for one audience

Many heterogeneous sites for many audiences