4

Organising and storing content

Introduction

Publishers can source, edit and structure content but in order to deliver it to customers effectively the way it is organised needs to be considered, particularly when presenting content to the customer. Information architecture is used to plan the way content can be structured for the consumer, most often in a web-based environment. Similar principles apply to other forms of digital products. In order to deliver the content effectively, there are also issues publishers need to bear in mind around the content system itself where the information is stored.

Information architecture

If a publisher holds its data in a structured way and has an idea for a web-based product the first stage in developing that product is to consider the information architecture required. Information architecture is the discipline of creating the structure of a website (or other digital product); the term is applied in different ways but essentially it covers the way to describe and understand the dynamics of a website, database or content management system (CMS) in terms of the following:

• function
• structure
• labelling
• navigation
• interactivity
• user experience
• search
• access
• visual design

It is about getting the information held in the data to the user in the most effective way. When putting together a website it is important to outline the information architecture – in this sense it is a design document which forms the basis of what you want to do with your product.

For any digital product it is important that the publication or service must be easy to use, making it straightforward so that users will want to return. Even in print products there needs to be organisation of the information that makes it useable (e.g. in the layout or the typeface), but with digital products, which may take users into a range of different content types and services, the specifications regarding what the user needs to do have to be very carefully defined.

The process

So the process of designing information architecture has to take into account a variety of things. Typically a design document may include the following elements:

• product rationale
• user profile/user specification/use scenarios
• information audit/content audit
• product design and functional specification
• visual design requirements
• resource analysis

To start with, the project outline needs to be clear, with attention paid to the scope and business opportunities:

• What are the aims of the project?
• What product is being produced?
• Why is this product being produced?
• Who is the audience?
• Why would they want this service?
• What competition is there?
• If it is to make revenue, how will it do that?
• How much risk is involved?
• What is the budget?
• What is the timescale?
• How will its success be measured?

This is much the same as developing a rationale for a published product that might be presented to a publishing committee. Research should underpin all these aspects, with particular focus on the audience.

When designing the product it is important to have a close understanding of the potential user and in particular how they might use the product. The audience needs to be defined and user profiles can outline the sort of user the product will have. Use scenarios can be created to look in detail at the way they may navigate a product – what might they be looking for on a website, for instance, and how will they reach what they need?

The content also is analysed and the functional requirements explored, bearing in mind the potential user. An information audit at this stage allows a company to assess what information it has and the capabilities that exist within it. Requirements can be drawn up and assessed in terms of the resources that might be needed, from cost and time to the level of skills necessary to create the product on this basis.

This content stage needs to be quite thorough: content needs to be clearly mapped out, grouped into categories, the hierarchy laid out, the format of the data outlined, together with the taxonomies that might be used in the structure of the product. Diagrams showing the way different web pages link to each other might be created, as well as analysis of the number of clicks a user might need to reach their goal. Other considerations include the visual look of the site, conventions for icons or labels, as well as the pathways from page to page which different users may take.

When the design has been clearly mapped out and the information architecture is in place, this is the stage when software designers, programmers and graphic designers will begin to get involved to follow the specifications and start to create mock-ups and designs. Here the product can finally take shape. Various checking stages, feedback loops and quality assurance procedures need to take place throughout. This same process can be used when developing an app, a game or a piece of software. The key is to establish an effective requirements document that can be used by the developers when creating the product. This process is by no means fast. Though the final programming can be done reasonably quickly, the stages leading up to it need to be carefully managed, and formal project management procedures are usually applied to ensure successful product development for anything from a database to be used internally to a saleable digital product.

Content management

We have looked at the way content can be processed through the workflow and held in a data warehouse. An important aspect of managing data is content management and the systems used to do this: a data warehouse in this context can be regarded as a content management system (CMS). Content management originally referred mainly to the management of content to appear on a website, but it tends now to have a much wider meaning as it encompasses anything from a simple website to a database full of assets. Content management systems are essentially ways to collect, edit and publish content, allowing for collaborative involvement with some workflow elements.

Publishing is a content industry and its expertise at managing content is developing all the time. Effective CMS ensures that the content is made available in the appropriate way to the appropriate users, is targeted or customised to suit the user, and can deal with structured and unstructured content, probably in large volumes. The CMS needs to be able to handle a full infrastructure, from the storage and archiving of content to the retrieval and delivery of content at the right time, and here content can be both documents and other types of media. It also has to take into account issues such as how often new content is supplied, how often existing content needs to be updated, what sort of output it is to become and what range and diversity of content there are.

Ultimately, a CMS is about realising the value of the content. One important aspect of it is the guarantee of the content: the quality and accuracy as well as legality of a piece of content need to be assured for it to have value. A publisher’s content management system therefore needs to be flexible in various ways. For instance, it is important that content can be:

• used as new devices and applications are developed
• licensed out if necessary
• broken up into small chunks
• easily integrated into an application
• integrated into other internal systems

In the last case, for instance, a program used by the publishers to deal with production planning and publication dates becomes even more useful if it is linked with the marketing database so that changes in publication dates can be made seamlessly and fewer mistakes can slip in between systems.

Some considerations for CMS

Data warehouses and content repositories have been developed by publishers and integrated into their workflow for many years, particularly in the research, academic and professional sectors. By now some of these systems are extremely complicated – a legal database can often require constant updating, with old sections taken out and archived, to be replaced by new sections, regulations and statutory instruments. Control is key: content needs to be accurately put into the system and it is important that the CMS is robust to ensure safe storage. Content must not be likely to get corrupted and the CMS needs to be regularly backed up. Protocols about correcting information where there are errors need to be put in place.

But content also ultimately needs to be findable; granularity in the system and the effective use of metadata are important to ensure content can be found. However, the more detail there is embedded in the data, the more costly the processing of the content becomes, so it is important to consider issues around the value and the amount of return to be gained from the content.

Efficient document management which allows effective use and repurposing of content is becoming ever more critical as users begin to interact further with the content management systems: for instance, lawyers might use the information to generate bespoke forms for their own businesses or researchers may be comparing versions of material as it is being developed. Security therefore is important not only to protect the content from unauthorised uses but also to protect users and any data they may be inputting about themselves in order to use the system effectively for their own work. Data protection issues need to be considered as content management systems become more sophisticated.

Enterprise content management

Content management systems tend to refer primarily to the content which is to be sold or used in some way: a publisher might be selling this content, a teacher may be storing teaching resources in a system of this sort, but it is essentially the content that has the value. But content goes wider than the actual content processed by the publishers ready for sale. Information within publishing can be found in various places; for instance, the actual metadata itself, which is an increasing area of value that publishers are building up for themselves, and also information held within production management systems, information about the distribution and supply chain, market information and financial information. This is all knowledge held in various ways within an organisation, whether by staff or by software programs.

Enterprise content management encompasses all the above types of information, extending the CMS further, as it essentially covers the management of content through all its stages and processes and integrates other organisational information that might have a bearing on the content. So it will cover the content from capture, search and networking to digital archiving, to document management and workflow, to marketing and delivery.

Systems of this sort are increasing in sophistication. For instance, as the content is used, so more metadata about that use is added to the content; this further enriches the information about the content and stores information about its possible use for the future; it can also capture information from things like emails, linking them to the decision-making aspects of an enterprise. Digital asset management is a form of enterprise content management; so, for instance, if you have a photo in your asset management system, you can see how many times it has been used, how popular it is and what sort of use it is put to; you may then be able to make use of that value, by monetising it through rights sales.

Knowledge management and storage issues

All this can also encompass knowledge management. Any company developing new techniques and systems for its content needs to have some mechanism and strategies for identifying, managing and distributing its knowledge and experience; it is particularly beneficial to map this knowledge in developing and adopting new technologies. How knowledge is imparted to people also has a product development aspect: for instance, as publishers seek to develop the way they provide information to their customers they may adopt knowledge management strategies in the structuring and delivery of their information to their users.

Storage of content of this sort is moving, as well as allowing smaller companies more flexibly and cheaply to manage their content and to overcome some of the security issues in having content based on the client. Historically information was most often held on the client and communicated to the server for the service they needed; this is changing now, with information stored on an application server (at the server end) and also remotely in the cloud. Essentially the software that once would have been held and owned by the client/server network is now held in the cloud and supplied, as it were, like a service, with a licence to use the software for the time it is used. This allows for some flexibility when planning new products.

Conclusion: CMS development driving opportunities

Developments of this sort in the planning and organisation of information are continuing all the time, and publishers need to keep abreast of these sorts of developments as they plan their content management and explore ways to adapt and deliver it to customers. This is particularly relevant in the specialist areas where large databases already exist and which need constant development; however, it is becoming increasingly important for those operating in the consumer market to adopt content management systems as the products they are developing grow in complexity.