As a result of my last blog, It’s More About Design than WordPress vs Drupal, I began a search for guidance about website design on other than technical web features. Being retired, I dive into topics when the need or the interest arises. It’s like living a jigsaw puzzle life, I’m fascinated by the manner in which one issue leads into another and I want to see how they fit together. (Note: you’ll probably see several jigsaw puzzle related graphics on my blog.)
Serendipitously, as I was catching up with various publications using FlipBoard on my iPad this morning, I saw the term “content strategy” on a A List Apart blog posting, Strategic Content Management, by Jonathan Kahn. I knew I had found the crux of my search by a statement in his first paragraph,
“We know that a successful web project needs a content strategy—but when it comes to the CMS, we stop thinking strategically. Despite all the talk about user-centered design, we rarely consider the user experience of the editorial team—the people who implement the content strategy.”
That’s the same sentiment with which I ended my prior post. It’s all about fitting the jigsaw pieces together. Great website content with poor delivery is as bad as a well-delivered website with poor content. Content strategy is a key component in the design of the website, which includes the content management system (CMS).
He also writes,
“Most of the time we select a CMS by popularity, cultural affiliation, or corporate edict—that is, without properly considering the content we’re supposed to be publishing. This is crazy. Instead, we should use a design process to select and customize a CMS, based on our content strategy and the editorial team’s needs.”
Jonathan Kahn’s blog post is like a mini-seminar on the CMS selection and customization process.
My future blog posts will delve into content strategy and other aspects of strategic website design in mini-bites.
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