1. Polar cubs
Domain modelling
at the BBC
(in 10 minutes)
Mike Atherton

2. Tom needed to make a great
content site, on the cheap.

3. The BBC had tons of quality content,
gathering dust in the archives.

4. location event
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Tom adapted a scientific model from
Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778)…

5. …then chopped up hours and hours
and hours of footage to fit the model.

6. The result is a product where the links
are as important as the video clips.

7. The case for
domain modelling

8. Domain modelling is the mental
modelling of subject domains.

9. It’s a method of IA that stems from the
elements inherent in content itself…

10. …rather than trying to classify
content by document type.

11. ALBU
artists release types LI
VE
SINGL
COMPILAT
releases release
tracks
labels
It’s about abstract relationships that will
become pages and links...

12. …and it works for all kinds of
subjects and sites.
chef
ingredient technique
recipe
dish programme

13. Anatomy of a
domain model

14. My first attempt at live music.

15. PROGRAMME PAGE WITH BBC MUSIC ARTIST PAGE
TRACKLISTING
Woo – cool journeys across
subject domains!

16. Knowing your
subject

17. I know nothing about football.
round
competi
stadium
match team
goal
player

18. Same terms used everywhere from
tables, to classes, to menus.

19. A best fit model for everyone...
competition stadium
round match team
goal player

20. …that informs website navigation.

21. Filling up the model

22. Good content is good.

23. location event
ha
s
lo
ca
tio
n
participates in
individual bio_event
is composed
of
s in
c ipate
parti features in
ecozones cohort
disp
la
beha ys learn
is aggregation is aggregation viou t
r
of of
has adaptation
ecoregions species adaptation
is composed
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is
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Better content is granular enough
to populate your model.

26. Business data enriches content
and adds context.

27. If you don’t have the content,
steal it from hippies.
bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Giant_Panda en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Panda

28. Designing the
user interface

29. Each thing is a page by itself, so I can
point at it from across the web.

30. Although some things may be
mere footnotes.

31. And almost all things are really
collections of other things.
bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Giant_Panda/news
bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Giant_Panda/sounds
bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Giant_Panda
bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00chptr

32. Add plenty of context, since most of
us came straight here from Google.

33. And don’t sweat the stuff you can’t
link up right now.

34. Curation

35. Curation brings human love to
a cold, robot heart.

36. Curations tend to be natural,
social, or editorially-driven.

37. A strong curatorial layer is better
than an orphaned microsite.

38. So what?

39. Let’s not let IA slide into
obscurity.

40. Let’s keep our beautiful clients focused
on what they’re good at.

41. Let’s make sure we have a platform-
neutral content model.

42. Let’s be clear that it’s not just about
websites anymore.

43. slideshare.net/reduxd
‘How we make websites’ by Michael Smethurst
bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2009/01/