I wrote about my realization that the problems we face with a multi-device future, the problems we’re trying to solve with responsive design or with other interaction design strategies, these problems are just as much about content strategy, and the solution lives way down in the CMS:

What blew my mind this year was when I realized that the problems we have with mobile and the problems we have with content management systems are the same problem. It’s been clear to me for a while that we need to provide better interfaces and workflows to content creators—if we want to publish great content, we’ve got to give people the tools to do it. What I didn’t realize until this year is doing that solves a lot of problems for mobile, too.

If we’re going to succeed in publishing content onto a million different new devices and formats and platforms, we need interfaces that will help guide content creators on how to write and structure their content for reuse. When we talk about mobile, we often focus on the front-end interactions, design, and code, but what I realized this year is that the solution to many problems with mobile lives way further down the stack, in the CMS.

This didn’t come to me as a lightning bolt out of the blue. I learned it the honest way: by researching and reading people who have smart things to say about our editorial processes across print, web, and mobile, content management interfaces, workflows, and APIs, and what that means for the future.

You might want to learn this too, so here’s a roundup of some of the best sources.

Structured Content + Responsive Design

If you think responsive design is just for designers and developers, then you’re missing out on the most exciting thing to happen to content strategy since the Excel spreadsheet.

A Richer Canvas
You know, I think we’re on to something when very respected graphic designers like Mark Boulton start arguing for content strategy. Actually, go ahead and smack me for saying that—of course great designers want great content, and skilled writers respect excellent design. The challenge is for us to work together to figure out what it means to think from the content out rather than the canvas in. What kind of structure do we need to put into our content so that designers can embrace the “unpredictable, fluid, fragile” nature of the web?
See also: Mark Boulton on designing websites using “content out” in .Net Magazine
See also: Content First by Jeremy Keith

Structured Content First
Stephen Hay gets this party started with a presentation that explains how content should be platform-agnostic for content, and platform-aware for user experience. Because layout and responsive design is only part of the problem, he explains that structured content is the baseline we need for responsive design. This is a Slideshare presentation, but don’t fret—there’s an audio track available and video too!

Structured Content, Shifting Context: Responsive Design, Content Strategy & the Future
Sara Wachter-Boettcher gives a great introduction to why responsive design isn’t just about design—it’s a content strategy problem, first and always. Content has to be ready for a future that’s fluid, shifting, and adaptive to change. To do so brings together the best of information architecture and the best of content strategy: people who are effective at structuring and describing content because they deeply understand the message and the meaning.
See also: Content First?: Semantics, Structure, and Why We Should Care by Sara Wachter-Boettcher

Nimble Report
Rachel Lovinger showed me a draft of this report when we were at the first CS Forum in Paris a couple years ago. It blew my mind then, not just because of the smart writing and appealing design, but also because it neatly synthesized a complex topic and made it accessible to mere mortals. It still blows my mind today, for being years ahead of its time. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s a classic. If you’re wondering why it makes my 2011 roundup even though it’s been around for a while, it’s because no discussion of this topic would be complete without it.

CMS + API

Mmm, alphabet soup. Once thought to be strictly the domain of hard-core techies, content management systems and application programming interfaces are now topics that should matter to every content strategist.

4 ways content management systems are evolving & why it matters to journalists
A better title might be: “… and why it matters to every business.” Publishers may be the most demanding users of a content management system, but the challenges they face in distributing and managing content across the entire social ecosystem are shared by many. The solution is to think of CMS as set of technologies, not a one-stop-shop, and to embrace open-source projects like WordPress, Drupal, and Django. The most benefits are gained when businesses think of the CMS as a platform that requires constant development and refinement to make it both useful and appealing to its content creator users.

COPE: Create Once, Publish Everywhere
Daniel Jacobson of NPR (now at Netflix) describes NPR’s approach to content management and API development, which aims to separate content from display to ensure content modularity and portability. NPR credits its API with increasing page views by 80%, largely because they’re able to get their content onto a variety of mobile devices without custom programming.
See also: Notes from NPR’s 2011 SxSW Session, by Scot Hacker

Your WYSIWYG Editor sucks
The title says it all: WYSIWYG CMS editors are the enemy of both structured content and standards-based web design. Let’s rise up and defeat them! Rachel Andrew details the many, many ways that they suck, and explains how we can do better. She notes, wisely, that there are technology components to this solution, but the real challenge lies in getting content authors to give up their familiar Microsoft Word editing model.

Make It Semantic from the Start
CMSes are vertically integrated, combining content editing + management with display + publishing. Their production model is still print-centric, thinking about how to get content online only later in the process. This might (sort-of) work when going from print to web, but it breaks down when going from print to our crazy multi-device future. Dan Willis says the answer is a semantic publishing system that chunks content appropriately, allowing it to be recombined in different ways on different platforms.
See also: When Did Print Become an Input? by Ann Michael
See also: Publishers: Structured Data and Content Management Systems by by Andrew Davies
See also: The New, Convoluted Life Cycle Of A Newspaper Story

Add To RSS

If you haven’t heard enough on this subject, then you should be following these writers.

Every Page is Page One
With topic categories like “Metadata Matters,” “Objects vs. Chunks,” and “Every Page is Page One,” Mark Baker’s blog reads like a rallying cry for the future of content. Of course, the future of content isn’t new: he’s a 20-year veteran technical communicator.

CMSish
A blog “where web content management and user experience collide.” Fortunately, the collision is less like a car accident and more like a streamlined knitting of perspectives. Michael Kowalski has worked with tons of publishers and believes “editorial staff should be given great tools to work with, that offer every bit as good a user experience as the best consumer apps.”

The CMS Myth
Hear veterans of the interactive space tell you why your web CMS isn’t a silver bullet. It’s about more than just the technology: it’s about people and process too. Sounds good, right?

The Rockley Group
Ann Rockley has been talking about what she calls “Intelligent Content” for years. Her book, Managing Enterprise Content, is an out-of-print gem; fortunately for all of us a second edition is on the way.

Me Me Me Me Me

Forgive the shameless self-promotion, but I’ve said a thing or two about these subjects in 2011.

5by5 Podcasts
5by5 is a fantastic set of podcasts, a few of which I’ve appeared on recently.
The Web Ahead with Jen Simmons
Content Talks with Kristina Halvorson
The Big Web Show with Jeffrey Zeldman and Dan Benjamin

Web Content 2011
Jeff Eaton and I gave a presentation called “Making the most of mobile,” where we talked about our favorite subject, the “reusable content store.” How will it help us deal with the proliferation of new devices and platforms, and what are the challenges that prevent us from getting there?
Interview
Slides
Video Part 1
Video Part 2

Drupalcon Chicago
Eaton and I again co-presented, this time talking about how to use familiar practices from user experience to customize the interface and workflow of Drupal, in a presentation titled “Baby Got Backend: Content administrators are users too.”
Slides
Audio

CS Forum 2011
I gave one of the keynotes at this international content strategy event. This talk, called “The way forward: what’s next for content strategy,” was aimed squarely at the content strategy profession and talked about what we as a community need to do next.
Slides
Video
Notes by Martin Belam

Do It With Drupal
This was the first draft of my latest “stump speech,” called “Adapting ourselves to adaptive content.” In this talk, I pull together everything I’ve learned this year, and identify what we need to do next to adapt our content to the new world of fragmented devices and platforms we now live in.
Interview
Slides
Video (requires subscription)

An Event Apart
I couldn’t be more excited to be taking my “Adapting ourselves to adaptive content” talk on the road with An Event Apart this year and next. I’ve already spoken in DC but you can see me in Atlanta, Seattle, or Boston in 2012.
DC October 24-26, 2011
Atlanta February 6-8, 2012 (register)
Seattle April 2-4, 2012 (register)
Boston June 18-20, 2012 (register)

As you might imagine, I am positively thrilled to learn that there’s an organization out there threatening legal action against organizations that don’t provide captions or transcriptions.

I just have a brief note about strategy that I hope this group will take under advisement.

You seem to be focused on threatening small volunteer organizations providing free content to a niche audience, like ASIS&T and Boxes and Arrows. If your goal is to prevent hardworking volunteers like Jeff Parks from creating audio recordings at conferences, mission accomplished! Why, if we can’t have it, no one can!

Since you’ve got money to spend on lawsuits, please let me suggest some alternatives that would have a more meaningful impact on the world:

• File suit against Netflix for not providing captions on the vast majority of their streaming movies—and for not providing any way to find streaming movies that are captioned. Netflix is particularly hostile to hearing-impaired customers, refusing to provide customer service via any channel other than the phone.
• File suit against Apple for not providing captioning for television shows downloaded from the iTunes store. While you’re at it, sue the pants off of them for the abysmal selection of captioned movies they offer. It’s criminal.
• Hire a team of lawyers to go after all the television networks that provide captioning in their broadcasts, but not on shows streamed via their websites or Hulu. (You’re going to need a big team of lawyers, because it’s most of the networks.)
• Hire the most vicious lawyer you can find to go after any movie studio that “accidentally” or on purpose removes the captions from the rental release of a DVD.

The Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, signed by President Obama on October 8, 2010, is a landmark piece of legislation, updating the 20-year-old Americans With Disabilities Act for the internet age. This bill requires captioning of television programs on the internet, as well as many other requirements that will enable the 36 million deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans to fully enjoy media delivered via the internet.

I’m glad to hear you’ve got money to spend helping to enforce this legislation. How about you leave the IA Institute alone, and focus on getting us some captions on streaming video from Netflix?

I talk to people all the time about the decision to acknowledge their hearing loss and invest in hearing aids. I know how hard it is for people to come to terms with that decision. While I can’t make the emotional decision any easier, I can offer some advice on how to shop for a hearing aid.

1. Shop for an audiologist

The most important decision you make isn’t which hearing aid brand or model to buy. It’s who will be your audiologist—the person who will dispense and fit your hearing aid.

Your audiologist is like a combination of your family doctor and a salesman at Best Buy. They’re going to evaluate your hearing, but they’re also trying to sell you a piece of technology.

The good ones have all the best qualities of both: able to explain complex concepts, don’t talk down to you, patient with your questions and struggles, give you the information you need but still let you make up your own mind. The bad ones have all the worst qualities of both: patronizing, brusque, use too much technical jargon, become impatient when you don’t do what they want you to. I mean no insult to the many good audiologists out there when I say: I’ve seen some bad ones.

Meet with more than one audiologist before you decide to work with one. Find someone who you’re comfortable talking to, and who seems like he or she will take the time to make sure you get the right fit.

2. There’s no best brand, only the brand that’s best for you

People ask me all the time: What brand should I get? The answer is: I don’t know.

There are many different hearing aid manufacturers: Widex, Siemens, Oticon, Phonak, and Starkey, just to name a few. In the same way that some drivers love Ford and hate Chevy, are passionate about their BMW, or only buy Hondas, audiologists and hearing aid wearers get attached to a particular brand.

Different manufacturers are known for different things. Widex has good noise suppression technology, and they offer a program that may help tinnitus sufferers. Phonak and Oticon offer Bluetooth. Starkey emphasizes its CIC (completely in the canal) model. Each manufacturer has different R&D priorities, so what they’re good at may change over time.

When talking to audiologists, ask them which hearing aid brands they dispense, which ones they prefer, and why. Hearing aid fittings are done using software provided by the manufacturer, and often your audiologist will be better at using one application than another, so it’s good to buy from an audiologist who is experienced with your particular model.

3. Buy for how you’re going to use it, not how bad your hearing is

You might be thinking “I don’t need an expensive hearing aid right now, because my hearing isn’t that bad.” Or you might think “Only the best for my mother! I want her to hear as well as she can.”

Like computers, hearing aids come in different price points. Make your decision about how much to spend based on where and how you’ll use the hearing aid. Buy a high-end hearing aid if you plan to use it in noisy environments, but don’t buy more power than you need.

Someone who mainly stays home and watches TV or has conversations in quiet environments doesn’t need a top of the line hearing aid — any more than someone who uses a computer mainly to surf the web and answer email needs a quad core Mac Pro.

On the other hand, if you’re relatively active, you will place more demands on your hearing aids. Crowded restaurants, conference centers, baseball games and airplanes all require your aids to work harder to filter out background noise and focus on what people are saying to you.

4. Don’t get seduced by features

I have fallen into this trap too. Bluetooth! Tiny! Colors! What you want is the absolute best hearing aid for you in terms of sound quality, noise suppression, and fit. Everything else is just decoration.

Personally, I do not believe it is worth it to get hearing aids with Bluetooth right now. I’m about as tech savvy as they come, and I wasn’t happy with my experience. This area is worth keeping an eye on, but don’t choose a hearing aid just because it has Bluetooth.

As a long-time hearing aid wearer, I also don’t think it’s wise to focus on size over other hearing aid features. I know first-time hearing aid wearers are sensitive about people knowing they have hearing loss, and I am completely sympathetic. But tiny hearing aids can have big problems with wax and moisture. You may also find that changing tiny batteries several times a week is a chore.

5. Try different earmolds for fit

It’s likely that you will consider a behind-the-ear hearing aid. While opinions vary on this, I personally prefer BTEs—I think they’re more comfortable and spend less time in the repair shop than in-the-ear models.

With a BTE, the hearing aid sits behind or at the top of your ear, and a plastic piece sits inside your ear. There are many different configurations for this earmold. You can get a little rubber dome (shaped like a gumdrop). You can get a custom made mold, fitted to the shape of your ear canal. Custom earmolds come in different shapes and can be made from different kinds of hard or soft plastic.

Which earmold is right for you depends on your degree of hearing loss—but it also depends on which feels most comfortable. Ask your audiologist to tell you about the options, and you may need to try different molds in addition to different hearing aids to find the right fit.

Buying hearing aids is not a great experience. The industry could do a much better job of focusing on what consumers need. Take advantage of the trial period offered (here in New York it’s 90 days) and plan to spend 6 months (or more) trying different models.

You will be better off in the end.

When I tell people a little bit about this they say things like “That sounds really interesting, I would love to take that class” and “I wish I you would come over to my house and tell me more about that” or “I would give up my addiction to playing Civilization if only you’d come over to my house and tell me more about that.”

Attendees at my talks say nice things afterward like “You were right, that really was fascinating” and “I didn’t know any of that, and I am better off now that I do” and “That was almost as fun as playing Civilization.”

When I give talks about this at conferences, and I meet people in the hallway before my session, here’s what they say: “I’d love to come, but I should really go to this session about SEO/social media/mobile app development/HTML5.”

I understand.

You’re spending the boss’s (or your own) money, and you want to get something of tangible value out of your conference time. Something you can put to good use when you go back to work. A talk about history just doesn’t seem very practical.

I believe the (short) history of our field is still relevant to our work today, if only we knew more about it. The conventions we follow, the interface metaphors we take for granted, the patterns we rely on—these didn’t spring out of nowhere. They evolved over time. People—people not unlike us—invented and refined them. Learning more about how all these decisions happened helps inform our own work. The story of the history of technology is the story of how we learned to understand our own behavior: how we learn, how we move, how we see, how we make choices. We taught machines to get smarter and friendlier and more responsive because we learned more about ourselves.

This missive is aimed mostly at the people who will be attending IxD11 in Boulder but who haven’t registered for my workshop with Bill DeRouchey, called Interaction Design History for Interaction Designers. Consider signing up, will you? I promise it will be relevant, informative, and inspiring. And entertaining.

But I want to make a point that applies to everyone, even if you’re not coming to Boulder. Take a moment and marvel at how far technology has come in the past hundred years or so. Particularly be amazed at the rapid evolution of digital computing over the past 65 years—and then get dizzy thinking about how much more work we have to do. Pay your respects to all the inventors and pioneers who made the decisions that got us here today. Maybe someday, there will be a designer looking back and giving thanks to you.

I’ve been poking at the problem of how to integrate user experience processes into advertising agencies for a while. I ran a survey on this very topic last year. I gave a talk at the 2009 IA Summit on what user experience designers need to know about the advertising business model. I’ve consulted with traditional advertising agencies on how to restructure their creative group to better integrate UX (no link there, but I bet you wish you could see my findings.) I talked about how advertising works online at length on my recent Big Web Show interview with Jeffrey Zeldman and Dan Benjamin.

Normally I wouldn’t wade into the murky waters stirred up by a fractious, link-baiting blog post, but unfortunately this muck is the water I stand in every day, and I’ve already got toenail fungus from it, so I guess I might as well engage in a pissing contest in it too.

Follow the money

What I haven’t seen in any of the debate about Peter’s post — the most important thing, and certainly the first question any user experience professional should ask is: Who’s the user of the advertising agency? Who’s the buyer? And what do they want? Advertising agencies exist, in all their dysfunctional glory, because there are still people who choose to pay handsomely for their services.

What are these people thinking? Why don’t they love the internet the way we do, and shift more of their traditional advertising budgets online? Why do they choose to spend their multi-million dollar online budgets on Flash microsites? Why don’t they get that they need to engage customers through better product and service design, not just through glossy campaigns?

Given the economics of our industry, I believe this is the 64 billion dollar question. And we as user experience people should be doing everything in our power to persuade these buyers to consider our point of view. Thinking our potential clients are stupid because right now they choose to work with advertising agencies is probably not a good start.

Hate the ad, love the business model

UX people hate ads. Trust me, I get it. They’re annoying. They’re distracting. Users hate them. So UX people hate them.

I can’t say this strongly enough: if you’re a UX person, and you’re going in to talk to your clients with a snotty, condescending attitude about advertising, then you’re not doing your job. Advertising isn’t the only business model on the internet. But it’s the most important one. Look around you: publishers, startups, Facebook, Google—all based on advertising.

If you hate ads, then figure out a way to make the experience of ads better. That’s your job, isn’t it? (Also, there’s good money in it.)

UX is organizational change

You know what’s the easiest UX job in the world? Running a small UX consultancy. (She says, as the head of a boutique UX consultancy.) Your clients come (mostly) pre-qualified: they seek you out because they know they need your services. Small size means you can be picky about your clients, and picky about your employees. You only have to work with people who already grok your values.

You know what’s the hardest UX job in the world? Trying to change the culture within an entrenched, traditional business. This isn’t just advertising: it’s financial services, healthcare, media, government… any business that isn’t already on board with user-centered design. News flash: this is most of civilization. It’s going to be hard.

To me, being a UX person working in an advertising agency sounds a bit like being a Log Cabin Republican—an admirable attempt to try and change the system from within, though not something I’d personally have the stomach for. But that’s why I have so much respect for people like Abby the IA.

Advertising is no better and no worse than any other traditional industry that doesn’t get UX. But if you want more money to go towards UX design, the best place you can look is to try and take it away it from marketing and advertising budgets. Believe in UX and hate advertising? Fight the good fight, and take their money — even if it means working on the inside.

I’m doing some research to prepare for an upcoming talk at Busan Design Week in Korea, and found myself at the HTC website. Imagine my surprise when I see this:

Hearing aid compatibility! In the nav! This company is so committed to making hearing aid compatible products that they want to market this capability on the homepage of their website.

Now, if you’ve ever bought a hearing aid before (and, if I know my audience, I can safely say that half of you hope you will never need to, and the other half are trying to do so right now and it’s the bane of your existence) you know that hearing aids don’t work very well with phones. I have a well-rehearsed routine if I ever have to take a call on my mobile that involves removing my hearing aid and hooking it over my thumb. Also, please never call me. That’s why God invented text messaging.

But the promise of having a phone that would work with a hearing aid is a good sales pitch. I’m intrigued. Until I get to this page (click to embiggen):

Um. What?

Here’s my question: Will your phone work with my hearing aid? In no way does this page actually answer my question.

Because I make websites, I know exactly how this happened.

There was a meeting in which everyone agreed that it was important, and valuable, and responsible, that HTC showcase its hearing aid compatibility. Negotiations ensued, and it was decided that Hearing Aid Compatibility would have its very own place in the nav.

Someone set out to make a wireframe for this page. This person was told that there would be some text on the page, and a table of ratings information. This person mocked up a generic page to represent this information (put text here, put table here) and then went about feeling very user-centered and accessible because of the attention given to the disabled.

Someone else (perhaps the engineer or business owner responsible for hearing aid issues) was asked to provide the content. This person knows an awful lot about technical standards for compatibility, but perhaps not much about writing for a reader. The content got populated in the CMS, and everyone felt good about it.

Except me.

No one ever came back to ask if the content that got published actually met the user’s needs. Someone defined a requirement that — in essence — said “have a navigation category for hearing aids.” It didn’t say “ensure that our hearing impaired customers can determine which product will best meet their needs.”

The user experience doesn’t stop at the nav. If the content doesn’t answer the user’s question, you’ve failed.

And yet, I’m still qualified to talk about why content is important to user experience. And you are too! If you don’t believe me, watch this video of my talk from IDEA 10. You can even follow along with the slides.

We are all content strategists now (on Vimeo.com)

UX Week, San Francisco, August 25

At this amazing event hosted by Adaptive Path, I’ll be leading a full-day, action-packed workshop on how to integrate content strategy into the UX design process. Working off a familiar UX process framework, I’ll show how content strategy fits into the mix with four entertaining, hands-on exercises.
Learn more and register now!

Planning-ness, Brooklyn, September 30

I have a particular fascination with how content strategy fits into advertising and publishing models. So I’m delighted to be leading a workshop at Planning-ness, an unconference aimed at planners and creatives. Branded content? Social publishing? Editorial workflow? See how content strategy enables all of these.
More about Planning-ness

IDEA 2010, Philadelphia, October 1-2

Wow. I am extra proud to be invited to speak at IDEA, a top-notch conference put on by my many friends in the Information Architecture Institute. Expect me to throw down the gauntlet for tighter integration between information architecture and content strategy.
IDEA program announced soon!

Iceweb, Reykjavík, October 7-8

I’m doing not one but TWO talks at this phenomenal conference in Iceland. Hop over to Reykjavík, pay your respects to the volcano, support the Icelandic economy, and see me give both a workshop and a short talk on content strategy. And an extra special bonus level of awesome: more content strategy talk from the inimitable Relly Annett-Baker.
Give it up for Iceweb

Content Strategy Forum, London, September 5-7 2011

It’s more than a year away, and I am already bouncing up and down with excitement. While it hardly seems possible that we could improve on the CS Forum in Paris, we’re going to take it to eleven at the next European event in London. This time with 100% fewer volcanic ash clouds from Iceland (I hope.) Also this time with me as a headliner, sharing the bill with the renowned Gerry McGovern.*
Register for more info

* Elizabeth McGuane, Gerry and I insist that this event is organized by Together London. Any involvement from the nefarious cabal of people whose last names start with McG is entirely imagined. I swear.

Karen McGrane on Web Content Strategy or “Avoiding the Eleventh hour Sh*tstorm Problem” from UX Melbourne on Vimeo.

When I was trying to make up my mind I did a search to see if anyone had written a review of this hearing aid. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I did.

What I originally tried was the m4-m-CB model, which is a micro BTE with a thin tube. I really covet that thin tube, but my hearing loss is just too much for it. My disappointment was compounded by a poorly fitted earmold taken by a less-than-competent audiologist. I sent these back, but your mileage may vary. This model might be a great option for someone with a milder hearing loss, and who is willing to tolerate the smaller batteries in favor of a less-visible aid.

I still wanted a Widex BTE, so I wound up getting the m4-9 model. These are a larger BTE and so they have the larger size 13 batteries I wanted. They also have the larger tubes, which are ugly, but such is life. I got half-shell earmolds rather than the full (skeleton) shell, which makes them a bit smaller and more comfortable. The smaller shells are really quite nice, though again, someone else’s hearing profile may require a different solution.

So here’s my review of these new aids: they’re fine. Really. Just fine.

Do I like them? Yes, I do. They work just as well as my old ones, and I adjusted to them easily. Do I love them? Eh. Not really. I don’t notice anything groundbreaking about them.

Here’s the deal. When I was doing this research, everyone I talked to emphasized how much better hearing aids had become in the five years since my last purchase. All the audiologists and manufacturers made a point of telling me that the technology had gotten exponentially better in the past five years. I was prepared to have my mind blown.

You know what’s gotten better in the last five years? My iPod. Five years ago I had an iPod with a scrollwheel and a black & white, text-only interface for choosing music. Today, I have an iPhone 4 with a touchscreen that has the sharpest color interface I’ve ever seen, and it can play videos, games, and other apps in addition to playing music. Heck, it will even make phone calls if I stand in just the right place and hold it in just the right way!

Has Widex improved its product over the past five years to the same degree that Apple has? Not even close. Frankly, I can’t even tell the difference between my old hearing aids and my new ones. But the new ones? They’re just fine.