Content Development Strategies and

Information Design

Content Development Strategies Original Content Repurposed Content User Generated Content Syndication Aggregation (portals) Functional Content

Considerations Cost of Development

Labor Process/Systems Expertise

Value Timeliness Shelf-life Quality

Content Development Goals Attract Audience

Met their Needs and Expectations Fit with Business Model

Organizational Subsidy Advertising User pays

Be competitive

Original Content Develop content uniquely for the

medium. Salon, Slate, Feed

Pro Take advantage of media’s capabilities

and better matched to user’s needs. Con

Expensive to produce.

Repurposed Content The reuse of content prepared for one

media, usually print, in another media. Newspapers, magazines

• Note: We are starting to see content developed for the Web repurposed in print.

Pro Secondary uses for content already paid for.

Con Literal re-use not always appropriate; process

management issues.

User-generated Content Users are encouraged, even incentivized, to

contribute content to site. Discussion groups (Yahoo groups) About.com, Slashdot, Plastic, Epinions Weblogs: Blogger.com

Pro Inexpensive Content; “Fresh content daily”

Con Perceived Low Value and Quality; still need

dedicated staff and s/w to manage process.

Syndication Reuse of content from recognized

sources in different contexts. News, columns, etc. (Reuters)

Pro Inexpensive content solution

Con Low value; content as commodity

available to all.

Aggregation The use of automated tools or processes

to gather information and organize it in one place. May involve personalization. Yahoo, Google. Indexes of links, vertical portals. Directories; Moreover.com

Pro: Inexpensive supply of content;Con: Barrier to entry low. Highly specialized.

Portals Organized collection of information

for a specialized audience.• Combines pointers to existing content,

links, directories, news and other information.

• Search engines (Yahoo, Excite) are horizontal portals.

• Vertical portals identify and promote an industry.

Traffik.com (The Portal Portal).

Functional Content Allow users to perform one or more tasks

and provide information to assist them. Genealogy search Groupware: calendaring, messaging. Travel reservations, etc.

Pro: Usually high value;Con: Requires programming expertise

Formats Publications Model Organization Model Portals

Publications Model Regularly produced periodical.

News Articles

• Interviews• Essays• Columns• Tutorials

Must promote its new content.

Organization Model Focused on the promotion of the business

(or non-profit) mission to its current or potential customers. Industry News Press Releases Product or Service information Advertorials

• Success stories White Papers and Reports

• Background on company or products.

Content Development Staffing Team includes:

Editors (Managing Editor) Producers, Production Editors, Copy

Editors, Designers Developers

Article Development Process

1. Editor works with freelance author to generate article.

2. Draft sent to copyeditor.3. Producer places the content into the

CMS and schedules it for publication. 4. Designer prepares graphics5. Producer and Editor work to generate

headlines and description, etc.

XML.com Example A publications model; new articles weekly. Team

A full-time editor Copy editor (10 hours) Producer (20 hours)

Freelance authors $200-400/article or column

About 4-5 articles a week. Costs: Approx $10k month

Information Design1. Information Architect

Organizing and presenting information for a user-directed purpose.

2. Structural Engineer Describing the structure of information for

processing by a program or human.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by Rosenfeld & Morville (O'Reilly)

Job of Information Architect (p.11)

Clarify mission and vision for site Determine site's content and

functionality Define site's organization,

navigation, labeling and searching system.

Figure out how site will develop/change over time.

Organization SchemesScheme Example

Chronological

What's New, Press Releases, Archives.

Geographical

Maps; Spatial Layouts, including tours.

Alphabetical Reference lists; Dictionary browsing.

   

Topical Subject-specific site

Task-oriented

Get a stock quote; buy; sell; research

AudiencesCreate paths for different audiences; customers; distributors;

Metaphor Desktop; library; showroom;

Balancing Act Linear structures are fairly rigid but useful. Hierarchical organizations are usually

flattened on the Web. Complete hierarchy is difficult for user to grasp;

rather like memorizing table of contents. broad and shallow rather than deep search can compensate

Associative structure (hypertext) provides for point-to-point leaps, where user maintains his or her own context. Trouble with associative structures is that user often doesn't know where he or she is about to go.

Navigation Navigation systems

• express how information is organized on the site (sections)

• identify key functions (help, search)• direct different audiences to different

parts of site

Linking Strategy Complementary or contrary to

navigational structure? Menus; Drop-down boxes.

Internal vs. External links Embedded links in paras Textual vs. graphical links Automated Linking

Minimalist Linking Links represent decision points for

users; don't overuse them. Embedded links do not often stand

out as clear choices. Isolate them. Graphical links can be too subtle.

Use cues. Links need descriptive task- or

action-oriented labels.

First vs. Repeat Use How does first-time user experience

site? Is the site’s mission obvious? Is it available from all levels?

Do repeat users “learn” to use the site? Are there shortcuts? Can they return to a previous state?

Change What changes on the site?

How often is new information produced?

Do different parts of the site change at different rates?

Does the user know what’s new and does it drive the site?

How is updated information indicated? What elements are permanent?

Making things familiar Are there things that users are

already familiar with, handles that they can grab on to? Familiarity with Print models With an identity or brand With the structure of information

The Structural Engineer Managing how information is

organized separately from presentation or application.

Identifying the source and destination of information

XML as “Self-describing information”

Interchange and interoperability

Information-centric Applications Highlights XML promotes an information-centric, as

opposed to browser-centric, view of the Web.

XML is part of a next generation Web that is more functional, and not driven exclusively by the browser.

XML will be implemented first on the backend where information is managed and can be accessed by information-savvy programs. 

Structured Documents XML is based on the idea that documents

can be represented as structured information, gaining many of the benefits of databases.

An interesting corollary idea is that databases can be represented as documents to provide interchange and portability.

Similar to object-oriented or component-based models.

Documents and Databases

  Documents Databases

Information unstructured structured

Tools authoringapplications

development

Access browsing retrieval

Generation static dynamic

Portability Yes No

“Stretching the Concept of the Document” Tim Bray, Web Techniques (12/98)

“both the nature of computing and the nature of XML will force document weenies (sometimes) to think like database geeks, and engineers (sometimes) to think like editors.”

XML is about standardizing syntax. XML represents structured information

as documents that are both human readable and easily processed by programs.

An XML document consists of elements and attributes inside a single root element.

Might also reference a DTD that describes a “grammar” for a tagset.

Syntax, Not Semantics Semantics is always a potential

pitfall. XML does not tell an application what

the tags and the enclosed content mean or represent. 

DTDs and Schemas are one approach to organizing semantics but for the most part this falls to the application.  

XML Tools A common syntax benefits programmers,

who can use a general-purpose tools for processing all XML documents.

XML Parser Tree or Stream Processing Models

• Manipulate the document structure (DOM)• Perform actions when element is found in input

stream Getting Started With XML Programming by

Norm Walsh

XML serves as the foundation for a family of standards XSL

Extensible Style Language XLink

New Linking Types Namespaces

Necessary to establish context of tagset, especially when exchanging XML fragments

Schema A DTD replacement that supports data types.  

Data Interchange XML is intended for interchange between

systems. Once you automate a site so that it is

generated from a database, then you might lose the benefit of having a search engine index the pages on your site.   This is an interchange problem.

An XML-based metadata standard would allow you to interchange information with search engines.

XML and Distributed Computing  Business relationships are largely based

on information interchange.  Imagine if you had to send your product

database to another company? How do you tell them how the database is structured?

Instead you might express this information in XML and make it available on your site for real-time access.

XML-based Web Services Schulman: The Web is the API

URLs are command-line interfaces into computing power available on distributed computers.

Example of quote.yahoo.com Unix pipeline

Automating Access to Information Think "Beyond the Browser" Think of programs as consumers of

HTML today. Programs talk to programs on other machines. Servers talk to servers. 

Soon, the conversation will be encoded in XML and these programs will be smarter about the information they retrieve and process.

Sample User Application Shipping Report A “client” program hit three different sites

(UPS, FedEX, and DHL). Access your account to retrieve shipping

information: Option a: grab this information from HTML

interface Option b: grab an XML document with the same

information. Integrate the results into a single report

available to others in your company.

Web Services Web Services are an attempt to

define XML interfaces for applications and business processes that can be exposed over the internet. An application can make use of services

available anywhere on the Internet Microsoft’s .NET strategy

Web Services Frameworks XML-RPC – Remote Procedure Call SOAP – Simple Object Access

Protocol UDDI – Universal Description and

Discovery Interface

RSS

Syndication uses XML.RSS – Rich Site Summary

See my.userland.com

An RSS Example “OpenAL Explained” on The information is gathered in CS

It is published as an article And as an RSS feed.

<?xml version="1.0" ?>  

<rss version="0.91">

. . .<item> 

<title>OpenAL Explained by Dave Phillips</title>  

<link>http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2000/10/13/oa_openal.html</link>  

<description>OpenAL, the Open Audio Library, is a parallel effort to OpenGL, the Open Graphics Library. It is cross-platform, open source solution for programming 2D and 3D audio. Creative Labs and Loki Games are spearheading the effort. Dave Phillips, who maintains the Linux Music &amp; Sound Applications Web site gives us an overview of the program.</description>  

</item>

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/">

<channel rdf:about="http://www.oreillynet.com"> <title>Articles from The O'Reilly Network</title> <link>http://meerkat.oreillynet.com</link> <description> The O'Reilly Network is a comprehensive Open Source information and resources center. The site includes a fresh, continually updated feature section, news and forums providing an active meeting place for advanced and beginnning Open Source developers and administrators. </description> <dc:rights>Copyright 2000, O'Reilly and Associates</dc:rights> <dc:publisher>dale@xml.com (Dale Dougherty)</dc:publisher> <dc:publisher>peter@xml.com (Peter Wiggin)</dc:publisher> <dc:language>en-us</dc:language> </channel>

<item rdf:about="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub /a/linux/2000/10/13/oa_openal.html"> <title>OpenAL Explained</title> <link>http://www.oreillynet.com/pub /a/linux/2000/10/13/oa_openal.html </link> <dc:description> OpenAL is the Open Audio Library, a cross-platform, open source solution for programming 2D and 3D audio. </dc:description> <dc:creator>Dave Phillips</dc:creator> <dc:subject>Linux</dc:subject> <dc:subject>APIs, Game Development, Gaming, Multimedia</dc:subject> <dc:type>Article</dc:type> <dc:language>en-us</dc:language> <dc:date>2000-10-13</dc:date> <dc:format>text/html</dc:format> <dc:rights>Copyright 2000, O'Reilly and Associates</dc:rights> <dc:publisher>The O'Reilly Network</dc:publisher> <dc:publisher>O'Reilly and Associates</dc:publisher> </item>

...

</rdf:RDF>

Building Information Interfaces User Application layer Web application layer

New roles for developers and designers Figure out what kinds of information

needs to be exchanged with partners across different sites.

Information Model What information do you manage and how is

it structured? Documents Events Users

What do you keep in a database? For how long?

Where is the information (source) found and where will you distribute it?

What formats are used to represent the information?

Tasks Describe several tasks that a user

can perform on your site. Think procedurally

• How many steps does it take to get the job done?

• How long does it take? Think functionally

• What is the user trying to accomplish?