authoring & ia

excellent post on another blog about having to create an IA that not only works for the site visitors but is easy to maintain by site authors.

But these two things (authoring and structure) can't really be separated. Say you create a great architecture, where you have a fantastic overall hierarchy and brilliant cross linking, where you have tested the whole thing and users can find stuff easily. What if the concepts behind this are too complex for authors to understand, or what if the metadata load is too much, particularly if your authors are non-technical and your indexing resources are limited. All of that great work in creating a brilliant architecture may be completely wasted.

and from one of the comments:

In lots of cases I think there needs to be a human interface (IA, Web editor, producer, what have you) when dealing with these sites that offer up such complex information, diverse audiences and all of that. I mean, the bottom line (IMHO) is the site should be usable by the reader/user and I don't think lots of times the people who own the content are not skilled enough to make the correct decisions. They need help, someone to marry the content with the IA and the design AND the users goals - no CMS will solve some of those issues, and frankly I'm not sure if they should.

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11.19.2003 update

david locke suggested Ann Rockley's The Unified Content Strategy™

what i read on her site I like that they look at the entire organization to help determine the content strategy:

Before you tackle any content management project, it’s critical to first identify risks, opportunities, strengths, as well as, goals you need to meet in order to be successful. The organizational needs analysis seeks to position your project for success in the context of your overarching organizational issues and goals. Identifying your organizational needs up front will ensure you are addressing the real issues of your organization, and will provide you with confidence that your strategy will meet or exceed customer needs.

see david's comment below concerning different views for content authors and the final output. I agree completely!

Comments

[David Locke]

Go with Rockley's Unified Content Strategy (UCS). What happens here is that authors structure their content in a template made for them. The information is then put into the CMS and presented in a template made for the reader or specific stakeholder.

The representations don't have to be the same. This reflexive use of a CMS system was an interesting component of the UCS, audits and the elimination of content variation is contrary to good communications practices.