1 Thanks Erin!

If I understand correctly, the content template is similar to a detailed contact form that is meant to be displayed on the site, as opposed to being sent to the admin. If so, one would need to actually find tools that would allow such functionality.

In any case, thanks for an informative post!

posted at 08:50 am on July 7, 2009 by forex

2 Hug a Tech Writer

I think if your organization is big enough that you have a need for this level of content development, hiring a full-time tech writer or even contracting to a freelance tech writer may be useful.

A good tech writer will learn the basics of your operations quickly and they specialize in dragging information out of content experts and standardizing the format for dissemination both on web sites as well as internal and external printed materials.

posted at 12:38 pm on July 7, 2009 by vancouver web design

3

Forex, I believe that this is to be used for internal use to develop the copy. It could be done in a simple text editor or Word (shudder). There are some web apps that allow collaborative copy development with comments etc. however the one’s that I have seen don’t allow the kind of detail that we have outlined here. I think a tool like this would be extremely helpful.

posted at 12:58 pm on July 7, 2009 by Ben Shoults

4 Content is always a hurdle

At our web design firm, the hardest thing we ever have to deal with is getting content from our clients. If they can actually provide some copy, it is usually poorly written. I’ve thought about creating some kind of “content writing form” like this but never got around to it… Im going to give this a try with our next project and see how it goes!

posted at 02:48 pm on July 7, 2009 by Dempsey Graphics Web Design

5 Templates prohibit customer individualism

Although i like the idea of a content template, i didn’t saw the necessaries up to now in my daily business. Most of my customers neither understand about content for the web, nor for real people or in a keyword context.

This problem is from my side usually solved individually. Every customer is different and i can’t compare the efforts to create (or snatching) the content for a wedding specialist or that for an business consultant. Neither can’t i compare the methods used, so a general template may just be the way for the ‘easy’ customers that don’t have lingual skills, but a strong understanding of what their business (and their website) is about.

Overall, i like the ideas. But establishing this within my business is not that comfortable with the kinds of customers i usually handle.

posted at 04:40 pm on July 7, 2009 by Stefan Klose

6 Mad Libbing beats out ad libbing!

Thanks for such a useful, accessible approach to low-fi content strategy, Erin. I like thinking of these templates as very structured Mad Libs, and a much better solution than just asking your client to write freeform. As you point out, content creation—whether by aggregation or writing—should come in the context of planning, ideally after a content audit. Content templates provide a sort of targeted content plan that can even grow into that broader strategy when you add fields like owner, expiration date, archiving plan, etc.

We’ve been working with templates for awhile for many clients who are writing or updating their own content. In general, by focusing on the content in addition to the design, we’re able to better control the quality of the overall product—never a bad thing for the client or their target audience, who no doubt seeks a consistently good and appropriate experience.

We’ve also explored using prescriptive content inventories to guide content creation. While Word-based content templates can offer example copy, they also leave open style and length constraints. A spreadsheet-based version can help control those variables: create a row for each content chunk on each page, and note per row the ideal character count, structure, keywords to include, etc. While all writers can benefit from these guidelines, some writers don’t do well working within such a tight structure—though the opposite can also be true. When newly-minted writers are actually engineers, they seem to thrive in structure and constraints of a spreadsheet!

You note the templates are “particularly effective when you’re working with whole classes of pages . . . all of which need to contain similar information, presented in a consistent way.” That’s where I’ve also found the greatest value in a spreadsheet-based solution. Just by scanning down a column, an editor can check to see if similar chunks of content are about the same length across all the product pages, or if all bios start with the same part of speech.

posted at 04:43 pm on July 7, 2009 by Margot Bloomstein

8 Assisting the content process

Over the years we found that it’s tremendously important to create/deliver a “wysiwyg”-like process for content creation to our clients. That’s why we use a CMS (Drupal) to setup content. We use possibilities like “previews” and “review chains” (via the workflow module) to make the client create his content with our help – and provide a “publish now” button to finally push the content to the right position on the project’s site.
Maybe that’s just a motivational kick, but actually it works fine for us and it increases the “fun factor” for our clients :-)

posted at 03:41 am on July 8, 2009 by proxiss

9 Great Idea

I work with very small businesses, which means there are usually one or two people who have all the content knowledge stored in their heads. The are also usually very busy, and exceptionally hard to pin down. I read this article Yesterday, and am already incorporating it into my workflow. Thanks!

posted at 09:46 pm on July 9, 2009 by sagaweb

10 Content Extraction Techniques

I have always laughed at the ways web professionals describe getting content from their clients. From many blogs, websites, magazines, and my own thoughts I have heard just about everything. I would love to keep track of these and make them public.

As for the content templates, they are a great idea! Especially with designs where the content must be a fixed size and length to not break a layout. I will most definitely be using this technique in content extraction as I call it. Thanks again A List Apart!

posted at 03:57 pm on July 10, 2009 by montanaflynn

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