Content modelling

Why we model content first

When a website becomes hard to manage, the cause is usually the content. The same program gets described on several pages, nobody is sure which pages are safe to delete, and only a few people know which field in the CMS does what. That happens when content lives inside pages instead of in a structure of its own.

So we model the content before design starts. We audit what exists, then work out the types with the people who will maintain them, including what a program is, what a story is, how the two relate and who keeps each one current. Pages are built from that structure. It is the least visible part of a project, and it decides whether the site still works in five years.

Programs that generate pages

Momentum was much smaller when it launched its first site, and since then several new courses with new structures had launched along the way. Signup worked differently from course to course, and it was not always clear which pages were courses at all. We audited the content and modelled courses and programs as structured content, so the team now creates a Program and its page is built from that data. The site has kept growing with the organization, and years after launch Momentum still gets compliments on it.

Two websites, one structure

Vibrant Communities Calgary was running two websites, its own and one for Enough for All, Calgary's poverty reduction strategy, and visitors could not tell how the two related. We audited both sites and replaced their flat page structure with six content types (Levers, Stories, Campaigns, Resources, Articles and Events), arranged in a hierarchy that put both brands on one platform. Alka Merlin, their Director of Communications, says we built “an intuitive backend that makes content updates easy.”