From Corey Vilhauer's workshop "Making things real: Content strategy for realistic content management" at Confab Intensive 2017 in Denver, Colorado. Everyone has a plan. Until reality sets in. You've seen it all before. A marketing team that's created unreasonable expectations. A designer who's looking to break barriers—without regard to the content model. The myth of personalization. The dangers of the completely customizable website. And now it's your job to bridge the gap between dreams and usable web programming. How do we take what we want and translate it into something usable? How do we take someone's ideas and turn them into a usable web implementation, navigating the constraints and pitfalls of project dreams, organizational bias, and unrealistic expectations? It's called "reification," and it's the act of making something real. We're not talking code. We're not talking CMS selection. We're simply talking about helping those we work with understand the content management landscape though a common language and practical questions. Let's take the best case scenario and get it closer to a real life scenario. Let's make things real.

1. MAKING
THINGS
REAL
A very professional workshop by
Corey Vilhauer
about content strategy and content management systems

2. me, pretty much

3. THE
PERFECT
LESSON PLAN

4. THIS IS ME
@mrvilhauer

6. the disclaimer

7. LET IT OUT

8. CONTENT
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

9. CONTENT
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
ARE NOT THE PROBLEM
WE ARE

10. PROCUREMENT
BUDGET
DISSONANCE
OUT OF OUR CONTROL

11. BALANCE
COMMUNICATION
TRAINING
IN OUR CONTROL (mostly)

12. WE ARE HUMANS.
IT IS ROBOTS.

13. “There’s a murky space
between the idea of content
and the hard reality of a
content management
system.”
- Deane Barker
author, Web Content Management

14. EXPECTATIONS
MEASURED RESTRICTION
TRANSLATION
BALANCE

15. THE EXPECTATION BARRIER:
OR, OUR DREAMS ARE
ALREADY DEAD
How do we help teams understand
the reality of content management,
and set expectations accordingly?

16. Content
Strategy
User
Experience/IA
Visual/Front-
End Design
Development &
Deployment
YAY WEBSITE!

17. Content
Strategy
User
Experience/IA
Visual/Front-
End Design
Development &
Deployment
Marketing/
Communications
Executive
Stakeholders
Editors &
Creators
YAY WEBSITE!

18. Content
Strategy
User
Experience/IA
Development &
Deployment
Low Tech/
High Need
High Tech/
Low Need
Marketing/
Communications
Executive
Stakeholders
Editors &
Creators

19. CONTENT STRATEGY
CONTENT CREATION
CONTENT MAINTENANCE
THESE ARE ALL
CONTENT MANAGEMENT

20. Article Category
Ad Banner
Title Short Title
Meta Title
Preview Title
Header Image
Preview Image
Image Caption
Image Maintenance
Body Copy
Category Feed
Content Break Points
Alternate Tags
Opengraph
Another Ad Banner
Editorial Categories
Byline Name
Date

21. NAME THAT TYPE

22. EXAMPLE:
Newsroom
News Listing
News Feed
News

23. WE STILL KIND OF
SUCK AT
MAKING OUR WORK
SOUND HUMAN

24. “…developers should
watch for ambiguity or
inconsistency that will
trip up design.”
- Eric Evans
author, Domain-Driven Design

25. When we say:
Content Model
We mean:
A conceptual term for the collection of content types,
attributes, relationships and datatypes in place to
accurately describe a logical domain of content.
In other words:
How pages, blocks, and other content are shaped and work
together within the CMS.

26. use ur words pls
The Balance of Message and Structure
The Priority of the Machine
Permanence vs. Flexibility
Communicate the Purpose

27. THE BALANCING ACT:
OR, THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
“WE CAN” AND “WE SHOULD”
How do we balance the rigidity of a
content model with the creative
flow of a marketing team?

28. “If we have learned anything
at all in this century, it is that
all new technologies will be
put to use, sooner or later, for
better or worse, as it is in our
nature to do.”
- Lewis Thomas
author, “Autonomy”

29. Structure
Customizability

30. WHAT
CAN
BE
DONE
SHOULD

31. “Content modeling is an
editorial issue.”
- Sara Wachter-Boettcher
author, Content Everywhere

32. YOUR
NEW CMS
CAN’T
READ
OR
REASON

33. PAGES

34. PAGES COMPONENTS

35. PAGES COMPONENTS
AGGREGATIONS

36. PAGES COMPONENTS
AGGREGATIONSINTEGRATIONS
DATA!

37. Pages
Home Page
Section Home Page
Components
General Text Page
Program Search
Undergraduate
Graduate
School
Program
Major
Directory
Directory Bio
Faculty Listing
Story
Stories
Student Media
Map Home
Calendar
Event
Image Block
Video Block
Link List Block
Program Block
Directory Listing
Story
Media Type
Event
Accordion
Table
Carousel
Promo Block
Academics Block
School Listing
Faculty Listing
Major List
Course Catalog
Search Results

38. HIGHLY-STRUCTURED
PAGE
MORE GENERIC PAGE
WITH COMPONENTS

39. PAGE
COMPONENTS
AGGREGATION
INTEGRATION

40. BALANCE THAT CONTENT

41. MEASURED RESTRICTION:
OR, NOT DOING EVERYTHING,
ALL THE TIME, EVERY TIME
Understanding the budgets we all
have to live within - from time, to
money, to attention.

42. MEASURED
RESTRICTION
(a thing I made up)

43. STRUCTURED OR OPEN?
How similar is this from page to page?
What integrations do I need to use?
How often does this content change?
How many will we create?

44. THE SITE MAP
CMS-DRIVENVISUAL
1.0 - About USD
1.1 - Why USD?
1.2 - Quick Facts
1.3 - Campus
1.4 - Office of
the President
1.5 - Mission and
History
1.6 - Art and
Culture
1.7- Campus
Policies
1.8 - Consumer
Information
1.9 - Emergency
Information
1.3.1 - Visit
1.3.2 - Map and
Directions
1.3.3 - About
Vermillion
1.3.4 - The
Future Campus
1.3.5 - University
Police
1.4.1 - Executive
Leadership
1.4.2 - Strategic
Plan
1.4.3 -
Accreditation
1.5.1 - Past
Presidents
1.7.1 - Policies
1.7.2 - New
Policies & Rev.
1.7.3 - Student
Rights/Respons.
1.7.4 - Student
Handbook
1.6.1 - Museums
and Galleries

47. PAGE PURPOSE
≠
PAGE TYPE

49. EXAMPLE:
News Feed
Press Release Feed
Case Study Feed
Article
Press Release
Case Study
+categories +components

50. THE BASE SITE
(i know!)

51. THE BASE SITE
(i know!)

52. The Base Layer
The Component Layer
The Specialized Exceptions

53. MINIMUM
VS
MAXIMUM

54. Do we suppress?
Do we require?
Do we ignore?

55. LOCAL
VS
AGGREGATED

56. Manual entry?
Categorical aggregation?
A mix of both?

57. CATEGORY
VS
RELATIONSHIP

58. Category assigned to both?
Explicit relationship?
Manual entry?

59. STRUCTURED
OR
NON-STRUCTURED

60. Can a machine learn it?
Will it make the job easier?
Is there an editorial reason to do it?

61. BUDGET
Entry
Development
Maintenance
Training
Highly Structured Open WYSIWYG
High
Medium
Low
Low
Low
High
Medium
Low

63. BAD COP

64. THE TRANSLATION POINT:
OR, WELCOME TO
THE MACHINE
How do we take our ideas
and turn them into a usable
web implementation?

65. WHAT I LEARNED
QAing WEBSITES

66. “Editors will circumvent
poor tools”
- Rahel Ann Bailie
author, Bridging UX & Web Development

67. BUILD YOUR
AUTHOR EXPERIENCE
INTO THE CMS

68. Meta Title
Page Title
Menu Title
Content Title

69. Meta Title
Page Title
Menu Title
Content Title
URL Slug

70. ACCESSIBILITY?

71. Set blank alt text field as
<img alt=“”>

72. Set a heading tag and a heading
class in the WYSIWYG.

73. ACCESSIBILITY?
SEARCH ENGINES?

74. Meta Title
Page Title
Menu Title
Content Title
URL Slug

75. ACCESSIBILITY?
SEARCH ENGINES?
OPENGRAPH CARDS?

76. Opengraph
Summary
Opengraph
Title
Opengraph
Image
Meta
Title
Page
Title
Meta
Summary
Truncated
Body Copy
Preview Image
Resized Hero/
Fallback Image

78. DOCUMENTATION

83. WRITING IS EASY
WRITING FOR THE CMS IS
HARD

89. TABLE THAT PAGE

90. AND IN CONCLUSION:
OR, MY TIME IS
NEARLY GONE
Does any of this
apply to me, and why the
you-know-what should I care?

91. CONTENT IS NOT ART
IT REQUIRES STRUCTURE

92. “Broken gets fixed.
Shoddy lasts forever”
- Jack Moffett
author, Bridging UX & Web Development

93. “There’s no API call for
makeShitUpHere()”
- Deane Barker
author, Web Content Management

94. THANK YOU
for making
things real
The notes and slide deck will be ready SOON, at:
www.eatingelephant.com/intensive17