{"id":476,"date":"2018-08-21T17:04:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T17:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/?p=476"},"modified":"2021-10-11T11:54:26","modified_gmt":"2021-10-11T11:54:26","slug":"unshackling-content-and-their-authors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/blog\/2018\/08\/unshackling-content-and-their-authors\/","title":{"rendered":"Unshackling content, and their authors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"vf-figure wp-block-image alignnone size-large wp-image-711 is-style-default\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/pasted-image-0-1024x687.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-711\"\/><figcaption class=\"vf-figure__caption\">Knot what the user had in mind. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rebdon\/8639284208\/in\/photolist-eaqAd1-KeMeo-88m9bD-6kkJe2-4MnJ2d-wkfq7-qRE3YQ-CT13pz-5ASaMs-akU9LQ-6DX4hy-FFCW5-476Sja-H3dH2-4eZQd6-4G1UkS-wZEYF-3Jdehr-mMSB2B-oNqzur-2m3ZQn-5EDU2X-6jXnAh-5dPGqN-6UsEU-b89HF-D6qAQ-8t48mz-6UsF6-mTCxXx-5YQ38a-4NAckq-fgunix-aEvPr-Pu85vq-6suFkk-9bceqB-Cjnbp-7tF8MH-4CB7pL-fAJHiD-eMQnmT-4NhxKC-91YyqD-9BAchk-4UaoPY-6yCPV9-4MiyU8-2DPjz-3RUaK\">Credit: Flickr user Rebecca Dongallo<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Content Hub for better content at EMBL<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Even organisations of modest size have web presences where content is hard to reuse and compromised editorial experiences.&nbsp;Even a robust CMS and internal development team is not enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>I have often encountered:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>\u201cWe use WordPress and that\u2019s been great for our main website, but we also want to use our staff profiles on our Joomla client support site.\u201d<\/li><li>\u201cHey Tim, I put the news article up, can you copy it onto the blog?\u201d<\/li><li>\u201cI hate writing and proofreading in the Drupal site.\u201d<\/li><li>\u201cThere\u2019s a page on the website I think is out of date, but I don\u2019t know who originally supplied the content. Any idea who I should contact?\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How EMBL is solving it<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Organisations create many types of content, and the content hub concept enables high-quality content creation by allowing multiple editing tools and enables use of the right content in the right place thanks to curation with meaningful metadata. The content hub is part of wider effort to use metadata to connect goals to content, pages and visual look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Where we\u2019re at today<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>We have an early and limited proof of concept that includes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Content import<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Drupal + Feeds is a good way to test content importing and organisational questions about how we\u2019ll deal with changes to source content, content review and allowing curators to add new feed sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Content creation<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>For now we allow editors and curators to create content in the content hub, but perhaps we shouldn\u2019t and content creation should be import only, and the content hub purely deals in content review and metadata addition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Content amending<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Are you importing content from a team\u2019s blog to reuse on the corporate blog? If so, you might find that writing standards and styles differ, so can you make the source blog adhere to the same standards or will you need overrides in the content hub? We\u2019re designing for this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Metadata management<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Content is king, but metadata is the lifeblood. As mentioned above, we have some two-dozen fields around content quality, target audience and position within the organisation. It\u2019s important to strike a reasonable balance between what is required and what you expose to which types of curators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Integration with goals<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>We often use the <a href=\"https:\/\/work.allaboutken.com\/posts\/20180122-content-action-model.html\">Content-Action Model<\/a> to help us better understand what our web pages are trying to achieve by breaking down goals, audiences and content. Our content hub integrates with this model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Content discovery and export<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Editors and curators will manage content, but page builders will need to access the hub to discover content for use. We\u2019re building interfaces that they can use to query content and select it for export, as HTML `&lt;link>` embeds or JSON.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Design pattern integration<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The content hub is being built alongside a corporate redesign for EMBL. The new design will be <a href=\"http:\/\/styleguides.io\/examples.html\">pattern based<\/a>\u00a0and the structure of content exports will fit that. (What\u2019s the point of a design library if the patterns don\u2019t fit your content, or if your content isn\u2019t designed to fit the pattern?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Contextual previews<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>As content can be exposed with the a design pattern structure, we can easily insert it into boilerplate pages for true previews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Page building tools<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>To lower the technical barrier for page building, we\u2019re looking at creating interactive tools and WordPress-style widgets to drag-and-drop content into layouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What\u2019s next<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re sharing the idea wider within the organisation (this blog post is part of that) and gathering feedback on the concept, how it would be used and integrating that feedback on the usability of the system and decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All of this is a starting point, a sort-of minimum baseline for a modern content platform. A content hub is something that will never be finished and needs to adapt and grow with the organisation. It\u2019s a concept that is extendable and we\u2019re looking at how to make more tools around in-context content previews and GUI-based page builders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If this is something you\u2019re interested in \u2014 even if you\u2019re not part of EMBL \u2014 watch this blog, or drop a comment or email: <a href=\"mailto:ken.hawkins@embl.de\">ken.hawkins@embl.de<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h.t345an5tichh\">Diagnosing and remedying the problem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The problems are deceiving because they are each solvable \u2014 but often only individually, the fix to improve one will negatively impact a second use case in a singular system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What makes it a hard problem is the underlying premise: a *single* unified editorial-curation tool is the wrong approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Having content in multiple places creates obvious issues around sources of truth and content reuse, but the problem caused by monolithic CMS that I\u2019ve described above is initially harder to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"vf-figure wp-block-image alignnone is-style-default\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/drawings\/d\/sfAcAg7ljzB2sq8iMQs8yig\/image?parent=e\/2PACX-1vR3OJJIJCaBg34VoZUPBTsO_ywTdP6_bNdpWcXaHtknU76FI8h5Vhs5OlzzYigPnWYdp_PY_4bjbfm-&amp;rev=319&amp;h=120&amp;w=602&amp;ac=1\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"vf-figure__caption\">Figure 1. Problems soon arise in a traditional CMS where the editor and curations tools lack distinguishment from authoring tools and output. You cannot change one part without impacts on other use cases.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s why developers often get stuck with a rotten problem, they can only treat the symptoms that result from a hierarchical system. What\u2019s really needed is a more flexible content flow, and we get that by separating concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"vf-figure wp-block-image alignnone is-style-default\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/drawings\/d\/sRMdFk8xSkKu6VvdhLDeMmg\/image?parent=e\/2PACX-1vR3OJJIJCaBg34VoZUPBTsO_ywTdP6_bNdpWcXaHtknU76FI8h5Vhs5OlzzYigPnWYdp_PY_4bjbfm-&amp;rev=79&amp;h=83&amp;w=602&amp;ac=1\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"vf-figure__caption\">Figure 2. We can now design and improve an authoring environment more freely.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>But the above is only a fraction of what we get by separating concerns, we gain far more when we need to target diverse use cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"vf-figure wp-block-image alignnone is-style-default\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/drawings\/d\/sFY91KL2Yi51ZL28Vd-vPwQ\/image?parent=e\/2PACX-1vR3OJJIJCaBg34VoZUPBTsO_ywTdP6_bNdpWcXaHtknU76FI8h5Vhs5OlzzYigPnWYdp_PY_4bjbfm-&amp;rev=141&amp;h=153&amp;w=602&amp;ac=1\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"vf-figure__caption\">Figure 3. The content hub is an expandable platform that allows us to integrate a wider range of solutions to better specialise around author needs. We could use, for example, a Drupal environment for creating highly inter-connected information, and WordPress when we need to want to focus on longer-form content quality and SEO.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>With a content hub as a bridge, management of&nbsp;complex relationships between items of content can happen independently of the authoring tools. The separation of concerns allows us to design each system to target the user needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Content creators want to focus on writing or assembling imagery with as few distractions as possible;<\/li><li>Editors and curators need to review content quality and add meta-information for content reuse and discovery; and<\/li><li>Page builders need to discover content and export just what they need.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>And those user needs map nicely:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"vf-figure wp-block-image alignnone is-style-default\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/drawings\/d\/sya-pOTyr1HrW1VpdxD5t8Q\/image?parent=e\/2PACX-1vR3OJJIJCaBg34VoZUPBTsO_ywTdP6_bNdpWcXaHtknU76FI8h5Vhs5OlzzYigPnWYdp_PY_4bjbfm-&amp;rev=161&amp;h=273&amp;w=602&amp;ac=1\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"vf-figure__caption\">Figure 4. Our tiers of system specificity map more cleanly and distinctly to user needs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As time progresses we can iterate on the user needs, tweaking each editorial system&nbsp;provide the better and bespoke authoring environment, creating tooling designed for managing content quality and relationships between content, and tools to select, assemble and export patterns* of content that integrate with the design system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>*aside: this configuration also lets us more easily leverage an organisation\u2019s design patterns as templates for content export and previews. It paves the path for developers to stay on brand, and allows editors to get more contextually appropriate content previews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h.hfcj46l4zm9s\">Building it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The solution to this problem is not hard but it does require effort and it will involve integrating different platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A singular off-the-shelf solution won\u2019t be what you need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the start of the project we can avoid focusing on the choice for editor environments; we only need to ensure they can export structured data (RSS, JSON, XML, etc.), and virtually all contemporary content applications can do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It also means our content hub must be able to import structured content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are many choices out there, but there are a few topics worth detailing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Think about standards, not software<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"vf-figure wp-block-image alignnone is-style-default\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/Ksn0zpzrvKKL3SWQjt7ZxMvRDXb9DQ1msHBzLjphJT2Cm9up3SyfB2ER9yP0s3B6eTKdPv1I4Cd9cNNBP5qk6LxeRyp5JppWC3BOI8fWn7QaNc5jjhN5DQGmPmXQb3TJb86XLBJe\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"vf-figure__caption\">A photo of planning discussion in July for the EMBL Content Hub. This high level planning excluded discussion of particular software solutions, we only discussed the content flow and use cases we needed to support. This was a conversation between content teams, web development and IT teams \u2014 you did remember to plan this with stakeholder engagement, yes?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Before you select a technological solution, be sure to document the use cases you need to achieve and the structured data you need to get there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"vf-figure wp-block-image alignnone is-style-default\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/xjfj52iH_3SS1-j5wvJCNpHRPmj6yWiBNB0uW06F70CLFPm4K_FPQWNZvZusXO7uc3-_IXvaDLjvTaqCIP1E7ll1d11VNbV4NxcwGq5Dygj5XCu62ebNJKwyBiz3yS2G4JdmvkQ5\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"vf-figure__caption\">After planning the flow of systems, we then began to think about the content types, component fields, and API design \u2014 again, we avoided speaking about what a software solution could provide, and focused on what we need from a solution.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>To cover EMBL\u2019s use cases, we specified around two-dozen fields covering content quality, age, review, ownership and content placement within the organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For us \u2014 and for many organisations \u2014 a content hub will be a customizable&nbsp;and&nbsp;extensible&nbsp;platform, and you\u2019ll need to have web and UX to support the user needs of something this complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Import and export<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Be sure to evaluate a platform\u2019s ability to handle the import of structured data. How easy is it to add new sources? How do you want to handle changes to the source material? How are imports of content done?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t forget to think about getting content out. How can you export HTML, JSON and XML from your system? How do you want to handle integration with your design pattern templates?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most systems are quite good at getting content out and less easy to use when sucking content in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Tools, platforms, useful things<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve avoided talking about specific software products so far, but ultimately you\u2019ll want to Google around; here are a few options to get you started:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Drupal + Feeds + Feeds Tamper:<\/strong><br>An open source option that is infinitely flexible but also has a maddening learning curve. Performance can be a concern on the content export side, so you may also have to heavily leverage caching or use an additional tool for content exports.<\/li><li><strong>Sanity.io:<\/strong><br>A commercial option that offers some slick developer and curator experiences. I\u2019ve only used it a little bit, but I\u2019d have concerns around managing a content import process.<\/li><li><strong>Contentful:<\/strong><\/li><li>A commercial option that is likely more to be a content creation tool, but it might also help you prototype your content structures.<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/graphcms.com\/\"><strong>GraphCMS<\/strong><\/a><strong>:<\/strong><\/li><li>A commercial option that turns GraphQL into a CMS. I\u2019m not sure how well it would handle content importing and UX would be a concern for non-technical curators.<\/li><li><strong>Build you own:<\/strong><\/li><li>If you have in-house developer time, maybe just build your own application \u2014 but then you probably wouldn\u2019t be reading this.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For EMBL, we have a background in Drupal and for the needs we\u2019re after Drupal 8 is a clear choice for our content hub \u2014 at least for the prototyping phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Principles<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>And when you\u2019re choosing your path, keep these three guides in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Build it for flexibility:<\/strong><br>Don\u2019t put all your content into one CMS. Instead build a central \u201ccontent hub\u201d for the management, curation and distribution of content. Build separate systems for the creation of content.<\/li><li><strong>Design for needs:<\/strong><br>Don\u2019t design the system by selecting vendors, design it by user needs and how users need to collaborate.<\/li><li><strong>Expect change:<\/strong><br>You\u2019re building a platform and ecosystem. Not everything will launch on day one and needs will change over time.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Do you have similar challenges?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If this is something you\u2019re interested in \u2014 even if you\u2019re not part of EMBL \u2014 watch this blog, or drop a comment or email: <a href=\"mailto:ken.hawkins@embl.de\">ken.hawkins@embl.de<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Content Hub for better content at EMBL Even organisations of modest size have web presences where content is hard to reuse and compromised editorial experiences.&nbsp;Even a robust CMS and internal development team is not enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1832,1],"tags":[],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital","category-general"],"acf":[],"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.svg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":560,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions\/560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476"},{"taxonomy":"embl_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/embl_taxonomy?post=476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}