paper & pencil

cms - interface scalability

Interface Scalability: how does your cms interface hold up as the amount of content grows & grows. web interfaces do not hold up as well.

4 Most Common Interface Scalability problems:

1. Conducting operations in bulk (deleting content, moving content, adding images etc.)
2. Only show what's mine

Permission and security access should be effective in providing guidelines as to what a user can see and do based on his role within the organization.  Likewise, permission and security-based access should be equally effective at preventing a user from seeing those things which they can’t do or don’t have access to.

3. Sorting through large volumes of content (next page, next page) - browsing
4. Finding content amidst large volumes of content - searching

 

does content need a permanent home?

very interesting thread on sigia-l regarding how to handle content that users would look for from multiple paths. typically the solution has been to give the content a single home and then link to it from multiple places - whether in the main navigation or via a related links section.

peter merholz responded with the thought that content not have a permanent home at all but displays wherever it is relevant.

But the more I toyed with faceted classification, the more I realize that buddha place isn't suitable for all kinds of content, particularly large information stores.

Content often shouldn't be considered to have a "place" but simply a set of
attributes that help people locate it.

authoring & ia

excellent post on another blog about having to create an IA that not only works for the site visitors but is easy to maintain by site authors.

But these two things (authoring and structure) can't really be separated. Say you create a great architecture, where you have a fantastic overall hierarchy and brilliant cross linking, where you have tested the whole thing and users can find stuff easily. What if the concepts behind this are too complex for authors to understand, or what if the metadata load is too much, particularly if your authors are non-technical and your indexing resources are limited. All of that great work in creating a brilliant architecture may be completely wasted.

and from one of the comments:

In lots of cases I think there needs to be a human interface (IA, Web editor, producer, what have you) when dealing with these sites that offer up such complex information, diverse audiences and all of that. I mean, the bottom line (IMHO) is the site should be usable by the reader/user and I don't think lots of times the people who own the content are not skilled enough to make the correct decisions. They need help, someone to marry the content with the IA and the design AND the users goals - no CMS will solve some of those issues, and frankly I'm not sure if they should.

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11.19.2003 update

david locke suggested Ann Rockley's The Unified Content Strategy™

what i read on her site I like that they look at the entire organization to help determine the content strategy:

Before you tackle any content management project, it’s critical to first identify risks, opportunities, strengths, as well as, goals you need to meet in order to be successful. The organizational needs analysis seeks to position your project for success in the context of your overarching organizational issues and goals. Identifying your organizational needs up front will ensure you are addressing the real issues of your organization, and will provide you with confidence that your strategy will meet or exceed customer needs.

see david's comment below concerning different views for content authors and the final output. I agree completely!

smarter content publishing

victor lombardi has a great article on digital web mag:
Smarter Content Publishing - Building a semantic website to increase the efficiency and usability of publishing systems.

most web cms's (so far) are missing this crucial piece: The ability to create content components that can be used repeatedly.

so far they've been more focused on distributed publishing to non-techie staff and workflow.