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CMS, a software tool for content UX forgot. Hence, the authoring experience.
“Understanding how the CMS will handle our foundational pieces means we build a stronger site, one that’s easier to adapt. And being able to communicate how the CMS will handle things is foundational to getting past the big dream and into a more solid reality.”
Corey Vilhauer a.k.a. /mrvilhauer | @mrvilhauer ~ Eating elephant ★
UX is the outcome, interacting with content.
“Good UX is all about getting out of the user’s way. A successful ecommerce site makes it phenomenally easy to shop, deeply evaluate, and compare products. The best sites let the audience do these things without even paying attention to how they get from product description to comparison chart to category page. Good content is about the same thing. The best content doesn’t draw attention to itself, but focuses instead on its subject matter–the information you as a marketer want to impart. Good UX is also about knowing what your user wants. Do the work up front (or have an agency do it) to figure out what your user wants, what they would ask if you were standing face to face. Don’t be afraid to ask the question, ‘Did you find everything you needed today?” in whatever form you can. Pay attention to the details of all your content. Improve what you have first, identify the gaps, then start knocking them out one step at a time.”
Augustin Kendall a.k.a. /augustinkendall ~ Portent ★ courtesy of petermorville
Just lure them into new content territories.
“Users can think they see the entire web page, although additional content exists off-screen. Designers must help users discover all relevant information.”
Kim Flaherty a.k.a. /kimflahertyux ~ Nielsen Norman Group ★
I guess open source applications is the second category UX forgot, just like enterprise aqpplications. Crypto apps for example.
“Ultimately, that’s what makes UX in open source content management such a daunting task. The limitless, unpredictable variance in use cases, combined with an ever-increasing demand for multi-language, “easy to understand” interfaces is difficult to keep up with.”
(Blake Callens a.k.a. @blakecallens ~ OpenSource.com) ★
Then they have to become smart.
“We’re talking on and on about making content more intelligent these days – format-agnostic, self-describing with semantic metadata, and modular – for reuse, for omnichannel, for delivering the right content to the right user, etc. But what about search engines themselves?”
(Noz Urbina a.k.a. @nozurbina ~ Urbina consulting) ★
I’m more into smart content. Smart as in CIA (CPU, Internet, and API).
“In very simple terms (…) intelligent content is an approach. Intelligent content is the approach of thinking through the way we structure (organize) and manage content – so that it can be managed as a strategic asset.”
(Robert Rose a.k.a. @Robert_Rose ~ Content Marketing Institute) ★
It’s COPE again, but now relate to strategic thinking.
“(…) the underlying ethos of content marketing and user-centric content strategy involves karma: The more real value you give to consumers, the more that will come back your way. The more we can make our content adaptive, the more we can realistically deliver tailored, high-value content without running out of budget, resources, or time. We didn’t invent content marketing because we’re such clever marketers. Content marketing came to be because our audiences simply stopped listening. And who can blame them? The new model is based on attention-for-value-added exchanges rather than blanket messages. It’s a sustainable strategic approach to communication. It sure beats the days of just trying to out-shout the competition.”
(Noz Urbina a.k.a. @nozurbina ~ Content Marketing Institute)
I never understood why people made this distinction in the first place.
“Now that we can study how our content and our designs affect the users’ experiences, we clearly see how this separation is hurting us. We must change it.”
“The core problem seems to be a feeling that the word ‘content’ reduces thoughtful, artistic expressions to a commodity. The websites and apps we develop to elegantly deliver words, images and media experiences are perceived as empty containers, hungry for content to be poured into them. Content marketing campaigns depend on calendars that demand to be filled on a regularly scheduled basis. This may give the impression that an effective approach to content is to churn out generic stuff that fits the size and shape of the container, and meets the deadlines.”
(Rachel Lovinger a.k.a. @rlovinger ~ Razorfish Scatter Gather)
“Responsive design is a poor man’s content strategy to address multiple channels. Perhaps a technical masterpiece, but it adds nothing to the transmission of a message. It helps nothing with the basics of content strategy: the transfer of certain key messages to your target audience. Indeed, there is also such a thing as a need. When I use a smartphone, I have other needs, then when I’m on a desktop. Responsive design – solely – does not respond to that fact. It’s a technical trick that will make everything fit on my screen and makes it readable.”
(Ric van Westhreenen a.k.a. @roodlicht ~ Rood Licht)
“The focus and widespread knowledge towards the importance of web design, web development, usability, and user experience is definitely positive, considering that only a few years ago most of the meetings I have had with clients had to start with an explanation of what the term usability meant. However, what is missing in these discussions – what is in desperate need of attention – is web content and the creation of a comprehensive and unified strategy for it.”
(Wojciech Chojnacki ~ Six Revisions)
“Content strategy is a new ‘old thing’, as old as publishing itself, so it’s potentially a foolhardy exercise to lay down a history – although we won’t let that stop us, oh no! (…) When it comes to web content in particular, whether technical content or marketing comms, content strategy has experienced exponential growth in the past decade.”
(Fiona Cullinan a.k.a. @fionacullinan ~ Firehead) ~ courtesy of infochef
“While all three components (creation, publication, governance) of the content strategy lifecycle are intended to be ongoing, it’s the Governance component that often requires the most dedication due to its never ending need for attention. Once content is created and published then it will forever need to be managed, maintained, optimised and compliant which leads to the age old question of ‘where to begin?'”
“Arguing for ‘separation of content from presentation’ implies a neat division between the two. The reality, of course, is that content and form, structure and style, can never be fully separated. Anyone who’s ever written a document and played around to see the impact of different fonts, heading weights, and whitespace on the way the writing flows knows this is true. Anyone who’s ever squinted at HTML code, trying to parse text from tags, knows it too.”
(Karen McGrane a.k.a. @karenmcgrane ~ A List Apart)
“Creating effective website content can be an arduous task, especially when so many factors must be considered: varying role capacities, internal politics, customer expectations etc. However, following a structured strategy can make creating focused content a piece of cake!”
“One last thing that end-users need to keep in mind as they think about solutions that are migrating from the consumer world to the enterprise world. A consumer application is not necessarily battle hardened for enterprise use.”
“It’s time to leave the web sandbox and lead the organization into a deeper understanding of the power and use of digital channels. It’s time to inform and engage executives so that organizational expectations are reasonable and that they’re supported culturally and fiscally. So maybe you can clean up the mess in six months – but it’s going to take a lot of resources and a cultural shift that can probably only be directed from an executive level. Most likely though, tough ‘redesigns’ are going to be ongoing evolutions.”
(Lisa Welchman a.k.a. @lwelchman ~ WelchmanPierpoint)
“They create a language to express publishing, content management, or reuse concerns, and then expect writers to write directly into what is really an internal content management format. Putting a graphical face over the markup does nothing to change this. The graphical interface only hides the syntax of the XML. It does nothing to change the fact that authors are being asked to create what should be the internal semantics of the publishing system — semantics they generally neither care about nor understand.”
(Mark Baker ~ EveryPageIsOne)
“Over the years technical communication has transitioned from a conventional author-reader engagement to a realm of social collaboration. Let’s take a look at how technical communication has progressed over time and the significant milestones along the way.”
(Monalisa Sen and Debarshi Gupta Biswas ~ tcworld)
“The other driver is the digital content revolution. While best-of-breed technical communication and training departments have been creating multi-channel outputs for years using a write-it-once, use-it-often strategy, traditional publishers haven’t felt the pressure to adopt this approach until the Kindle, smartphones, tablet computers – and of course, the iPad – changed consumer demand.”
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