Talk originally given at the Smashing Conference. Resources can be found at http://www.rachelandrew.co.uk/presentations/future-of-cms

1. The Future of
Content Management
Rachel Andrew: Smashing Conference 2012
Thursday, 2 May 13

2. edgeofmyseat.com
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3. grabaperch.com
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4. Question.
Who here generally develops sites using some form of
content management system?
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5. Why don’t we talk about
this more?
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6. The trouble with content
management systems.
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7. http://storify.com/rachelandrew/cms-horrors
“Has your client ever done something
really odd using a CMS? Font horrors,
giant images, crazy content? I'd love to
know your stories.”
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13. Clients love to do a little
bit of web-designing.
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14. “Make the logo bigger!”
No.
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15. “I want to use 24 point
Comic Sans”
No.
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16. “I want to edit my site in
Microsoft Word!”
oh go on then ...
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17. Web designing.
Just one of my
many skills.
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18. Why are we doing this?
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19. We should not be giving content editors a
tool to use to destroy their site.
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20. If you provide something better than the
Word experience of website content-
editing. Your users stop asking for Word.
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23. We cannot expect non-developers and
designers to make sane decisions about
document semantics.
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26. A CMS is not a website
design tool.
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27. If you wouldn’t give the client a copy of
Dreamweaver & their site files, why give
them a CMS that attempts to mimic that
experience?
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28. Your CMS should be entirely focussed
around creating great quality content.
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29. Content editors are often the forgotten
users when we deploy a CMS.
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30. This is not a new problem.
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31. This is why we can’t have nice things
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32. (probably not) Henry Ford.
“If I had asked people what they wanted,
they would have said faster horses.”
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33. What should the CMS
user experience be like?
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34. 1. The CMS helps content editors make
good decisions.
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35. A CMS is often as much an enemy of good
content as it is of good design.
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36. - Karen McGrane
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2012/08/08/karen-mcgrane-content-strategy-for-
mobile/
“Let’s try to make the job for our content
creators as easy as possible, and let’s build
the tools and the infrastructure that we
need to support them in creating great
content.”
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37. 2. The CMS allows the designer to make
semantic decisions so the editor doesn’t
have to.
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39. 3. The CMS protects the design and
architecture decisions made for the site
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40. When we stop trying to give content
editors a web design tool, we can focus on
a system tailored to the type of content
they need to create.
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41. If content editors are not worrying about
how it looks. They can add better content
more quickly.
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42. You keep control of document semantics -
can add Aria Roles, HTML5 elements,
format dates for international audiences.
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43. Content is stored based on what it means
rather than how it looks.
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44. Structured content can be easily
repurposed - on the site or for email,
RSS, social media, another website.
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45. A big textarea to fill in page content is a
terrible user experience.
Content editors are our users too.
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46. An example.
a structured content approach to image management
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47. greenbelt.org.uk
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48. greenbelt.org.uk
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49. greenbelt.org.uk
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50. Requirements
Make it easy for content editors to explore the archive
and choose images without needing to maintain their own
folder of images.
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51. Requirements
When an image is used, if the template changes, we need
to be able to regenerate the image at the new size.
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52. Requirements
Provide a browseable library of images on the website,
direct from the archive, that again could be regenerated
if the templates changed
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53. Requirements
Leave the door open to provide a range of image assets
for any one use of an image in a template - to enable
retina images or different images for screen widths/
bandwidths.
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54. Greenbelt Media Server
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55. Greenbelt Media Server
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56. greenbelt.org.uk
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57. Structured Content
not a silver bullet.
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58. strong, emphasis, links, blockquotes,
lists, inline images and files
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59. Avoid raw HTML being inserted into your
content at all costs.
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60. Your CMS should actively be removing
HTML elements added by content editors
(unless you really love 1997 markup)
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61. Markdown
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62. markitup,jsalvat.com
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63. We are solving the
wrong problems.
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64. Our customers ask for
faster horses.
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65. Our customers ask for a
better WYSIWYG.
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66. Trying to make the CMS behave ‘like
Word’ is solving the wrong problem.
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67. Pouring energy into solutions that tie the
content to one design or one output is
solving the wrong problem.
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68. Turning a content management system into
a site building tool rather than a content
creation tool is solving the wrong problem
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69. Seeing ourselves as the user, or the visitors
to the website as the user and ignoring
content editors means we will continue to
try and solve the wrong problems.
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70. The future of CMS?
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71. Karen McGrane - http://karenmcgrane.com/2011/12/14/mobile-content-strategy/
“If we’re going to succeed in publishing
content onto a million different new
devices and formats and platforms, we
need interfaces that will help guide content
creators on how to write and structure
their content for reuse.”
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72. Use structured content wherever possible
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73. Avoid directly inserting HTML into content
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74. Treat content editors as your most
important user.
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75. Craft better experiences for content editors
within the tools you use
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76. If your CMS falls short tell the maker.
Report user experience issues to open
source projects & CMS vendors just as
you would any other bug.
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77. Difficult problems
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78. Hoe can we create a more elegant layer
on top of structured content?
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79. Can we enable offline editing?
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80. Multilingual content?
Internationalized sites.
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81. Let’s talk about this.
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82. Photo credits:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/7018116723/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jk_too/3300092780/
Thank you
@rachelandrew
http://rachelandrew.co.uk/presentations/smashing-conf
Thursday, 2 May 13