Content Modeling Phases

Most of my projects involve building content models, and I have a deep and abiding love for the process. I like teasing out the patterns and relationships in a big mess of content, then creating a structure that marries development, design, and business needs. I find it very satisfying, like putting together perfect rows in Tetris.

I’ve worked on plenty of projects that have issues that warrant the creation of a content model: a client wants more efficient governance workflows, or to reuse pieces of content across channels, or they’re building a responsive site and need a cleaner separation of content and display code. They’ve learned, or been told, that the answer to the mess they’re in lies in a content model. The problem is that a content model isn’t actually an end game. It’s not a solution unto itself.

A content model is an organizational tool. Expecting it to solve problems merely by existing is a bit like setting up a new filing cabinet in your office and being surprised when you come back a week later to a desk still covered in piles of receipts.

My projects run more smoothly when my stakeholders understand the bigger picture of what’s involved in converting to a new content model, and I’ve started to talk about content modeling as having four phases:

1. Auditing existing content and building the initial models

This is what most of us picture when we think of content modeling. A structural audit is how I learn the shapes and patterns in the content, and I translate that understanding into diagrams and spreadsheets detailing content sections, fields, and relationships.

2. Stress-testing the models

I do two kinds of stress-testing, and both are kind of tedious and extremely important. The first kind involves literally sitting around a table with subject matter experts—representing the needs of the content, business, development, and design teams—and walking through each model. Field by field, section by section, we discuss issues and adjust the model to better meet everyone’s needs. It’s a little arduous, and absolutely necessary. Bring snacks.

The second kind of stress-testing is a sample migration of roughly 10 percent of existing content to fit in the new models. The models are built based on a representative subset of real content, but a broader migration pilot project always reveals new issues that need to be addressed. A pilot migration also gives us solid statistics we can use to estimate time and energy needs for the full migration.

In a recent project, we had assumed we’d be able to glean the content of a teaser field from the current site, but through the migration test we recognized the need for a copywriter to rewrite most of that information. That same migration pilot also helped us identify which sections could be migrated quickly by any team member, and which sections needed slow, careful attention from a subject matter expert.

I think it’s important that this migration pilot is conducted by the team who will be creating and editing content moving forward. This gives them a head start in building their own intrinsic understanding of the content structure, and their insights about places the structure is falling short or is overbuilt are invaluable.

3. CMS implementation

I generally build CMS-agnostic models, meaning that I create fields and relationships in service of the content, without regard to how difficult those choices will be to implement in any particular CMS. Bully for me, but once a CMS is chosen, we’re all boarding the express train to Compromise City. During this phase I work closely with developers to make adjustments so the models can still do their jobs within the confines of the CMS’s capabilities.

This phase also involves building customized help and content guidelines directly into the CMS interface, because that is my jam.

4. Getting the content into the CMS

This is the dirty secret of content modeling: someone actually has to move all the content from those dusty receipt piles into its new tidy home in the filing system. There are some nifty advances being made around extracting data using algorithms, but for now this work needs to be done by people. Given my druthers, I like to have the team move existing content directly into the models in the new CMS, which familiarizes the team with the new interface and helps us find places we could improve the authoring experience on their behalf.

Having the team move old content directly into the new CMS is not always a realistic plan, because of scheduling and timing, and other complexities. So often we do half-measures, having the team move content into spreadsheets and then auto-importing those to the CMS, or hiring interns to do the bulk of the migration labor. This phase can take a long time, but content migration is a really great way for everyone to get familiar with the CMS administration and workflows long before launch.

5. Shampoo, rinse, repeat

I lied. I said “four phases,” but after those four are complete, the final, endless phase is maintenance, iteration, and improvement. In the same way we promote doing regular content, performance, and code audits, we should also work with our teams to do regular content model audits, reviewing the fields and relationships to make sure they’re still aligned with design, development, and business needs.

I would love to be able to sketch out a content model, quietly close my laptop, and come back the next morning to find all the content humming along in a new and beautifully flexible CMS implementation. For the record, I would also like a mini-donk. Even without magical content gnomes (or tiny equines), recognizing the distinct phases of modeling work has helped my projects run more smoothly. I’m better at getting the right people at the table for the right discussions, and budgeting appropriate energy and time across the entire project. Talking about the phases also helps my stakeholders understand the larger picture of a long-haul content modeling initiative, and helps all of us make decisions that move us closer to meeting our business and content goals.