molly.com
Thursday 11 May 2006
The Meaning of Content
This isn’t the first time I’ve questioned what the word content really means, and I’ve got a gnawing feeling it won’t be the last.
I was reminded by a client yesterday that using the word “content” in a meeting was most decidedly not a good idea. The clients are highly educated professionals who spend large amounts of time researching and writing, but aren’t necessarily tech-savvy. Particularly the older members of the group.
Content to these folks, I’m told, is a threatening word. It means they have to write more, organize more, do more when they’re as busy as anyone, and all they want is a good web site.
Now we all know that we can’t make a web site without content. We need the stuff, or it’s not going to happen. And the more we work with semantic markup, the more having the content from the get-go is critical to our web development and design workflow.
Content to the web designer and developer can be an upsetting word. Clients and associates who don’t get around to giving us content often still demand that web site.
Which we can’t make without their content.
Clearly, there’s a mismatch here. Maybe we need to look more closely as to what we really mean when we use the “C” word, and then break it down for our clients in far more specific terms. “We’d like three client case studies and associated testimonials” might work better than “we need content for the client section.” That sort of thing.
What does content mean to you? To your clients and associates?
Maybe you’ve even got a content-rich story about content to leave in the comments, which of course will result in even more stuff we can call “content.”
Filed under: professional, web design and development
Posted by: Molly | 8:28 am |
May 11th, 2006 at 8:54 am
Content is not just information (text and/or images) but organized information and that can make it harder to put together. A person/organization who wishes to have a web site put together for them can possibly throw pages and pages of brochures, documents and press releases (and more) at you for the site but it takes as much, if not more work to trim the excess and organize the content. Some organizations, if they have the funds, should hire a copywriter to help with this.
May 11th, 2006 at 10:25 am
As a blogger writer and a web producer, I’ve struggled with changing the way I think about the word “content.” It’s not good enough. When I’m producing a site, I don’t need “content”, I need words, pictures, audio and video as necessary. I need nomenclature. I need specific things. Content is gooey. It’s a blob. It doesn’t really mean anything. Especially to non web-savvy folks.
As a blogger writer on the web, I know that my posts are better when I think of it as writing instead of merely content.
Content gets better when we stop calling it content.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:24 am
In web and information design, the word “content” is effectively jargon - a shorthand reference to any and all text, images, sound and video that we wish to transmit. We know what it means to us and we’re comfortable with the terminology of our domain. We’ve already determined what content we need before we ask for it, so it’s easier to save a few syllables and call it content.
But “content” is a generic and non-specific word in mainstream English, which is why non-designer clients balk when asked to provide it. It’s so nebulous a term that one doesn’t even know where to begin without some clear direction.
It’s a general rule of thumb to avoid using field-specific technical jargon when trying to communicate with someone outside that field. So if we treat the word “content” as jargon, first consider what you’re really talking about, define it in your mind, and then say the definition instead. You’ll be telling the client what you really mean, as opposed to insider codewords that will only baffle them.
I may not understand a surgeon’s medical mumbojumbo but I certainly know what “cutting you open and removing a few pieces” is all about.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:27 am
Content for a website is information which you want to tell your audience. I fmy client wants to build a website, they want to tell their customers something. So that something is content.
If they struggle to find content which means they are finding difficult to tell about themselves. As such my advise to them is to get what they have at the moment about themselves and use it as content for their website.
Most of the time, my customers have no issue about this.
May 11th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
I have struggled recently to explain to someone that ‘a great website’ is based upon content, and that the provision of content was his obligation.
In the end I got it. I asked: “If you search on Google for something, like finding a holiday home, what do you like to see on the links that Google gives you?”
He then very clearly described the content he wanted to have for a holiday home website.
I responded: “Given the fact that someone uses Google and finds you site, what do you want to show on the website?”
Then it was like a cartoon: I could visualise the light bulb popping up above his head and it was 100% clear what was demanded and why he had to provide it.
May 11th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
Who cares any more. The web is dead. Or I’ll kill it.
May 11th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Got your mail. Sorry. Can’t do that. I’m not good at anything. People just misunderstand me and I get shit for it without being told why. I’m disrespectful they say. Guess I should just kill myself. Adios.
May 11th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
Content to me is the very reason the web is here. Content is anything a client can think of that has a purpose. Those ideas are then shaped to give a structure. A website should reflect that structure. Content is what a client wants. It’s what the client’s clients want. It’s purpose, it’s meaning, it’s reason. It’s their ideas, ideas that can be shaped.
Surely if a client has no content or hasn’t thought about content they shouldn’t have a website? Why do they want a website if they dont know what the content is? It’s why a website should exist. Any designs are based on content (and so maybe part of the content in a way?)
Good content gives knowledge… text that somebody has just thought up for the sake of having content rarely offers anything.
I hate working on a site before there is even any content. The client rarely knows what they want and often changes their mind (as it happens I think it’s these sites that fail in being successful).
“We’d like three client case studies and associated testimonials” might work better than “we need content for the client section.”
Why should you have to tell them what to put in their client section. If they don’t know why do they even have a client section. Web consultants surely know their job and know what to do - but knowing what content the bank of the world, for example, might want in their clients section is asking a little too much. Or am I totally wrong?
There’s an old saying: “Help me… help you. Help me, help you.”. They need to help you and give content. Try using that phrase in you’re next meeting Molly (you have to shout it though
)
May 12th, 2006 at 5:48 am
My experience over the years, both designing sites for companies that want websites and then in other roles within companies that have websites, is that most companies and organisations want to have a presence, but most of them have no idea whom they want to reach.
So, that makes the concept of content extra difficult. Working with some companies was easy. Nokia has an excellent corporate communications department that has clear vision and message. They knew what they wanted to say, what their brand was, and so on. But then again, they had a clear vision that the site was marketing, support, and investor relations primarily. Which in many ways initially was simply a cooler version of what they’d had in print.
But many times I’ve been places where they obsess about the look, and have no message to communicate. That takes more than a basic web designer to help with. At they point they need a marketing and communications specialist.
It’s no good to send a fancy envelope, if there ain’t a letter worthwile inside.
May 12th, 2006 at 6:55 am
Timely Molly… I just went through this this week.
Very true, Peter. The letter does have to be worthwhile — and that’s as important for search engines as it is for their customers. It would be a wonderful world if the customer’s knew what they wanted to say and who they wanted to say it to. Oh yea, it would be wonderful too if they would all hire copywriters. That would rock.
@Dave — I hear ya… it would be nice sometimes to say, “You’re web stoopid… you don’t know what content is… you don’t deserve a website.” But alas, that’s not the real world I work in.
In the world I work in, I say, “It’s time for your content?” or “Do you have your content ready?” and hear the stuttering and realize what a geek I’ve been. I then switch to, “I need the text and images for your website. I need the information we discussed for each page.” Suddenly the light turns on.
All that said, it’s STILL nearly always the last thing I’m waiting on. They push me and push me to finish the site till it’s time for them to deliver. Then it’s not quite as important to them anymore. That’s the most frustrating part of my job I’d say.
May 12th, 2006 at 10:19 am
Content is the stuff the client is supposed to give me. I don’t know anything about extreme underwater basket weaving and couldn’t write a lick about it on my own. I could suggest to the client however, in the storyboarding phase that it might be a good idea to have an about section here and a news section there, but as for the “content” within those sections, well that’s up to the client. I could even go further and suggest a title, subtitle, excerpt, etc… but these are all best guesses based on what I’ve seen elsewhere on the web. The client needs to know his/her industry and tell me that their press releases contain this that and the other in such and such a format. I can definitely guide and suggest, but I can’t stand in for their knowledge of their industry.
And “just give me a good site” is one of my pet peeves. It’s like telling a writer “just write my biography” without offering him any content.
May 12th, 2006 at 11:37 am
I’ve been producing for the web for nearly a decade now and I can probably count on one hand the number of projects which I got the content first. It always seems to me we should have the “stuff” first.
But what do I know?
May 13th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
Wow, you’re not kidding. I got so sick & tired of waiting forever and a day for clients to supply their conten that I wrote a clause into the contract pointing out that we reserved the right to charge up to 75% of the price once we were more or less done with our bit if they didnt supply their content but as you all rightly point out, iits counter-intuitive and most clients dont get it. I have one client right now who is driving me nuts. She bought a book about how to do a website. The book is designed for service-based industries and is basically, web-content for dummies and somewhat short of sense. Her business is product-based and whilst we’ve given her our best advice, she continues to email me snippets of stuff with - can you now build me this template’ etc requests when i keep telling her we’ll start on it once the material is assembled and the site structure and navigation etc is battened down. Too many Word users think web development is a simple drag and drop, whack together some pretty pictures affair. aaaaarrrggggghhhh
May 15th, 2006 at 12:20 am
Interesting, I hadn’t really thought of content as a scary word. It never ceases to amaze me just how much computers (literally) scare people; or the way people find it so difficult to transfer concepts to the online world. Nobody would expect a print publication to be sent to bureau before the content was added, yet they’ll quite happily tell people to publish a website that just says “coming soon”.
Back on topic… Thinking it through, I think a lot clients dislike hearing the word “content” because it means “work”. As in, “this is the bit you can’t pay someone else to do”. The name won’t help everyone.
What is content? In its purest form it should be “the stuff you wanted to publish in the first place”. It’s the message which the medium facilitates.
May 20th, 2006 at 4:06 am
Yes, getting content from clients in timely fashion (let alone all together and in correct format) is a never ending battle.
I think, Molly, you’re right on with the idea of explaining content needs to clients differently; “We’d like three client case studies and associated testimonials” might work better than “we need content for the client section.”
If you can get away with short explanations like that, not bad, but I find it’s usually not that easy. I often have to give rather detailed breakdowns of what is needed. Even then, I end up playing copy editor or photo processor.
The copy editor part is not bad, but it takes up a considerable amount of time. I make it very clear that I’m charging by the hour for the services, on top of the negotiated site deliverable, and I also make it clear that deadlines are potentially pushed back as well. Nine times out of ten clients are fine with paying the extra bones and delaying the launch if I fine-tune the copy too.
@Damian: I’ve wondered about the value of adding a clause like that in the contract. I’m still not sure what to think. If you ever had to back that up (enforce collecting the money), would you? I mean who wants a small-claims court case, even if you do win. What a hassle. I’d like to hear more thoughts about how others enforce..er..encourage content supply from clients.
May 26th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
Probably what we need is a wiki-like paradigm that is robust enough to deliver a web skeleton to your clients. Delivery of the web site could then occur without the content - you could even sell it that way and build the language into your contracts. You’re done. It’s up to the client to key in and upload the rest.
-Software Developer
May 31st, 2006 at 7:04 pm
Content is the wrapper for all the poo that we (as webbies) need in order to make that project end up on the right side of the tracks. I despise the word, although I find myself using it far too often. The developers on our team use it on the client facing side of our CMS to describe a task they should be doing. It’s generalized and lazy. Call it what it is.
If you need articles from the client say so. If you need FAQ’s, say that, or contact information, a bio, a short blurb about how they came to be wearing Nightcrawler Underroos all the time… I dunno. Using Content to ask for pertinent information from the client is like trying to explain HTTP Tunneling to my Grandma….
June 3rd, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Have you ever seen a Necker Cube? It nicely illustrates the viewer’s role in defining what it is they’re looking at. It shows how Content is dependent on Context.
True or false: the primary responsibility of the designer is to provide the appropriate context to the audience. I say true. This is done in order to reinforce a particular message. The designer strives to remove as much ambiguity from the system as possible.
The example Donald Norman gives in “The Design of Everyday Things” is one of a door with a push plate and a handle. He calls these “affordances” since they “afford” certain actions. For instance, you push on a plate and pull on a handle. Simple.
There is very little ambiguity present in a well-designed door. On the other hand, a one-way door with a handle on both sides is going to irritate many users. As a matter of fact, the shop owner will eventually resort to the old “PUSH TO OPEN” sign.
That is what we call a hack, no? It’s a visual blemish. It’s a crime against elegance and simplicity. If the designer had given greater thought to providing the appropriate context, that sign would be unnecessary.
Design is context!
In quantum physics, they say the observer influences what he observes. In my opinion, this is because there is no context at the subatomic level. There is only some kind of chaotic material. Cosmic clay.
What we call Content is an illusion, like the “Maya” of eastern philosophy. It’s something that exists in name only, just as a river or a country or a species exists in name only.
What is actually present is an organizing principle. This principle is what we call Context and its visual body is what we call Content. Or we could also say that Context is the Soul of Content.
A tornado forms the distinctive shape of a funnel, yet it is composed of nothing more than dirt and wind.
The organizing principle we find in everyday design is nothing other than the Logos of Heraclitus, the Tao of Lao Tsu, and the Spirit on the Waters of Genesis.
June 7th, 2006 at 5:19 am
[…] What do I mean by “content”? I don’t know if I can define it but I can talk about it. […]
November 10th, 2006 at 6:14 am
Necker cube no but I see the Rubikx Cube is being dragged out of the storage cupboard and is set to become the next big toy. Infuriating I never DID finish one.
Nice Blog
Rob
November 28th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
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Today’s world is a tough place. Only god know what’s going to happen in the future. Lets hope the world will find some peace soon and our future will be bright.
December 9th, 2006 at 1:49 am
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Good reading! Makes my boring days at work work more pleasurable.. well.. I’m always bleating about something. Have a nice day!
May 24th, 2007 at 9:56 am
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June 1st, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Hi there!
For me, “content” literally is what something contains. In an essay for instance, everything written comprises the content,.. or what’s inside of a bottle or of a book..or whatever!!
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July 26th, 2007 at 12:04 am
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March 20th, 2008 at 6:15 am
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April 21st, 2008 at 11:49 pm
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April 24th, 2008 at 7:19 am
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