Gerry McGovern has spoken, written and consulted extensively on Web content management issues since 1994. He has written three highly respected books, including Content Critical and The Web Content Style Guide, and is currently working on a fourth.

You’ve said that Web designers should think of the Web as a publication and think of themselves as editors. What about those who are trained to think more in terms of application development and database-driven content rather than the front end?

I think there’s obviously a strong role for application development on the Web. However, I feel that overseeing everything should be a publishing approach. Someone needs to ask the question about whether we need this application in the first place, whether anyone is interested in reading this piece of content.

How can organizations develop a Web publishing strategy, and who should champion it? Traditionally this was within the purview of the IT folks, but should it now be led by a Web manager, a communications manager, a business manager or an IT manager?

Developing a web publishing strategy is really about figuring out what content you have that can drive value for your website. It’s about focusing on content as an asset, not a commodity.
I think there’s a big trend away from IT having responsibility for the Web. The intranet is coming under the responsibility of communications, and the public Web site tends to go to marketing.

How can teams of people from different backgrounds learn to work effectively and collaboratively on a Web team?

Web teams are no different than other teams, except that then tend to be a bit rudderless. I think there’s a relatively simple way here: put someone in charge. Nobody is really in charge of a great many Web sites I come across, and that results in all sorts of delays and compromises. Somebody needs to be able to make decisions that stick.

You wrote an interesting article called Words Come Before Looks in Web Design. In spite of the old maxim that “content is king”, an interesting study done at Stanford University in 2002 found that the “look and feel” of a Web site was the prime factor participants used to assess the credibility of sites. Do you think people are drawn more to content or to functionality, e.g. Google?

I think that graphical design is important but good functionality is far more important. Why is Google worth 25 billion? Because it has a nice logo or because it has a great search? Examine the homepage of eBay. It looks like it was designed for a kindergarten audience, but it is very simple, very straightforward: “Find, Buy, Pay”. First and foremost, Web sites need to be useful.

What’s the best strategy for creating metadata? Should you have a Web editor assigned as a metadata specialist to summarize content for search engines and browsing, or should there be a more distributed approach whereby you train Web publishers and SMEs how to create effective metadata?

Depending on the size of the organization it could be a combination. I do think that writers should be trained in creating quality metadata for their own content, but there will also be required an editorial oversight.

Let’s play futurist for a minute. How do you think content will change/evolve as we draw towards the end of the first decade of this century? How will content management improvements in technology change the art/science of information design? Any predictions on what kind of networked environment we’ll be living in?

I think the Web will get smaller. There’s been an awful splurge of content on the Web over the last 10 years, and most of it is useless content. I think by the end of the decade we’ll see less content of higher quality. The future is about back to the basics: learn to write compellingly, clearly and concisely.