What does “Contentology” mean?

In this Manifesto, Contentology is a coined word that, in its strictest etymology, could mean “the science of content” or “the study of content”. The word “Contentology” is supposed to make people stop and think for a moment, and if it sounds absurd, then we have to ask ourselves why it sounds absurd.

Most people presume that the word content means ‘something that is within something else.’ Yet this popular definition creates a tautology: “Content is content that’s inside something that seems to be content.”

Before the Internet became a tool for the masses, “content” or “contents” were simply vague terms for printed copy in a book or a magazine, or the food products inside a can of soup. The popular meaning usually referred to something that was being packaged for consumers, or something that was simply being stored or moved within containers.

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What if you could share your own private network with the people and organizations you trust, exclude all other Internet connections (Web, email, etc) unless it passed your own criteria for inclusion, and could police your network by blocking any sites or emails that violated your rules in any way? What we think of as “the Internet” could fast become “the Intranet (capital ‘I’)”.

While everyone’s still garnering an understanding of what Web 2.0 means, a Web 3.0 could creep up and overtake it because of bandwidth, security and proprietary content drivers.

EXAMPLE 1: BANDWIDTH AND ACCESSIBILITY

SavetheInternet.com is a coalition that has “banded together to save the First Amendment of the Internet: network neutrality.” Their site defines Net Neutrality thusly:

Net Neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. It’s why the Internet has become an unrivaled environment for open communications, civic involvement and free speech. The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies – including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner – want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won’t load at all. They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video – while slowing down or blocking their competitors.

Their concern is that the open playing field of the current Internet, where everyone gets equal; bandwidth consideration, will be lost in favor of a Web 3.0 where private enterprise offers a faster, but more exclusive Net for those who can afford it.

EXAMPLE 2: SECURITY AND USABILITY

Personal InfoCloud, by Thomas Vander Wal of InfoCloud Solutions, talks about about how users have a kind of preferred way of accessing information online, what he calls the “Local InfoCloud”:

As the my understanding began to lean toward familiarity as a core component of the definition of Local InfoCloud, the term began to embrace the social and community aspects (I am working on shying away from the term community as it is a broadly used term and I am trying to be a little more precise). Interactions with people, services, networks, applications, etc. that are familiar are means of bringing information closer to us as people with data, information, and media needs. The Local InfoCloud eases access. It eases the ability to find and refind information. It is information that is closer to us, not necessarily in physical proximity, but in the ability to access, in which familiarity is bread. I spent much time considering changing the label from local to community or social, but there were elements that did not perfectly fit that either.

Location-based services may be created by a service, but understanding the mindset, terminology, dialect, and cognitive frameworks that are germane to that physical location the information can be structured to resemble or mirror the social elements of understanding in that place. I will get to a better understanding of this when I talk about the Location aspect of the Local InfoCloud. As well, thinking in the Model of Attraction framework the Local InfoCloud is that which is attracted closer to us than the Global InfoCloud.

What I extrapolated from Vander Wal’s blog is that the Internet, or the “Global InfoCloud”, could become much less appealing for users than their own private network where they could control how they find and refind information, and how they interact with more familiar people, services, networks, applications.

EXAMPLE 3: PROPRIETARY CONTENT AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Back in the late ’90s when I wrote a weekly Internet column for our local newspaper, one of the things I predicted was that the Internet would become more proprietary, just like how online subscription services such as AOL, Compuserve and so on used to operate a few years earlier. That’s not to say that you won’t be able to access any content on the Net, but any content worth accessing would be fee-based.

In a recent New York Times book review, the issue of digital publishing is given another spin. When all books are digital, it makes it easier to combine and recombine information like never before:

Liberating books from their physical contexts could make it easier for them to blend into one another, a concept heralded by Kevin Kelly in an article in The New York Times Magazine last month. “Once text is digital, books seep out of their bindings and weave themselves together,” wrote Mr. Kelly in an article that was derided by Mr. Updike in his BookExpo polemic. “The collective intelligence of a library allows us to see things we can’t see in a single, isolated book.”

Of course, that should alarm the entire publishing industry, especially authors. Up till now, a book with its two sacred covers was a complete work, a product, a publishing unit of sale, a reference and an ISBN number. But if your book simply becomes a part of the swirling maelstrom of data on the Web, integrated into other databases and chopped into fine bits like the old K-Tel food processor infomercials we used to see on TV, who makes money on it? And who gets the credit if your content is simply hashed up into other dynamically generated pages of material?

Again, that’s where a network of private intranets would appeal to those who want to preserve the integrity of their intellectual properties. You control who can access it, who can buy it, and what they can do with it. I can think of many other reasons why Web 3.0 may happen sooner than we think, but I’d really like to hear from others on this subject. Post your responses here, or email me  and I’ll share your thoughts in this blog.

The Elements of User Experience got its start on your Web site. What are the origins of that book?

The model described in the book really grew out of my need to explain the work I did to the people I had to collaborate with. I was the first information architect in a rapidly growing design firm, and many people there weren’t familiar with IA. I drew up the model in a single-page PDF document, and when it was finished I thought maybe some others in the field might find it useful. I posted it to my site, and it was the popularity of that document that led to the demand for a whole book on the model.

Do you have any new books coming out, or are you working on a new book now?

I’m not working on a new book at the moment. My company, Adaptive Path, has been in high demand since my first book came out, and managing that growth is really consuming most of my attention lately. I do have a couple of ideas for books that I’d like to tackle; I hope to be able to turn my attention to them sometime next year.

How would you define “user experience” to a non-techie?

I define user experience as the way a product operates and behaves in the real world. In other words, what’s it like to use the product? What kind of an experience is that? The philosophy of user experience design is that we can plan that experience before it happens and build certain qualities into it.

There are professional firms that call themselves information architects (ia), usability specialists, user experience designers (uxd), or just Web designers. Is this a sign that as the Internet evolves, expert roles are changing as well, or are Internet experts are gradually coalescing into specific fields of expertise to create professional standards and self-governance, as in other professions? Are all of these different titles confusing for clients who are paying for those services?

There are certainly more experts and specialists than there used to be. But I think it’s important to remember that for every specialist, there are a dozen generalists who have to handle many aspects of site design. Most information architecture work is not done by an information architect. I think the specialist community is missing an opportunity to raise the bar for the entire field by neglecting to find ways to help non-specialists do better work.

Are many user experience designers following your five-tiered model, generally speaking, or do you see many variations of it in the field?

I think there isn’t a strong impetus for people to come up with new models these days. One of the reasons the Elements model was so popular right from the start was that it was really filling a vacuum. A lot of people were wrestling with these ideas, but there hadn’t really been a concise, visual articulation of how the pieces fit together. These days, people don’t have the same motivation because these ideas have been much more fully explored over the last several years.

Your Visual Vocabulary Model for describing information architecture and interaction design has become a standard modelling language because of its logic and clarity. Do you anticipate having to make any changes to the current version 1.1b, and if so, what sort of changes do you anticipate and why?

The current version has been stable for a few years now. For the problems I designed the vocabulary to address, I haven’t encountered anything about the system that needs to change, and I’ve been using it longer than anybody! Of course, I may find myself wanting to extend the system to tackle new kinds of problems. So any changes would probably involve a significant leap forward – a Visual Vocabulary 2.0 – that would take the system into new territory.

In your book, you talk about the pitfalls of “design by default” (when a design structure follows the organization’s existing technology structure), “design by mimicry” (when the user experience inappropriately follows conventions used on other sites) and “design by fiat” (when someone’s personal prefernces drive the user experience decisions) — what strategy can designers use when a client or (worse?) a company executive is determined to stray down one of the above paths?

It all comes down to having reasons for the choices we make, being able to articulate those reasons, and being able to trace our choices back to the needs, expectations, and behavior of the people who will be using our product. Executives are all too often satisfied to see that a product works. The question we should be asking – the question I think every designer is ultimately charged with – is not “does it work?” but “does it work well?”

How can user experience design positively impact eGovernment projects and other public sector or non-profit organizations where issues like accessibility and universal design are important?

I think the various eGovernment initiatives are very encouraging for the field of user experience. Right now, the public sector unquestionably has its hands full meeting accessibility standards. But once they’ve made substantial headway there, it seems inevitable that they’ll turn their attention to user experience. It’s just a matter of time before agencies discover that accessibility is just one part of fulfilling their public mission, and that their sites aren’t serving the public if everyone can access them but no one can use them.

Taking a longer view, where is the Internet going and will user experience issues be overshadowed in the future by purely IT developments?

If anything, the role of user experience is only going to become more important as the sophistication of our technology increases. We’re never satisfied with what our technology does for us – we’re always pushing it to do more. That ever-growing complexity means that user experience designers are going to be busy for a long time to come.

I have been developing unified content strategies for about 15 years and working with content management systems for about the same period of time. The unified content strategy came about as I realized that there was no clear strategy for creating multiple documents or learning materials for products and services for a company. They were often created by different individuals and inconsistent. Often I was asked to create multiple documents on a very tight budget and short timeframe. The only way to do this time and cost effectively was to develop a unified content strategy then develop the materials to support the strategy.

My experience with content management began when clients had more and more information to manage (ranging from 10,000 pages to more than 100,000 pages) and as I began to develop materials in SGML. SGML databases enabled me to manage elements of content, not just documents. It was a perfect fit to use content management to support the unified content strategy.Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy came about as a result of our work with our clients. The book answers the questions that each client asked as they started to work with us. Now when we start to work with a new client the client already understands the basic concepts and process so we can “hit the ground running”. The Rockley Group works on each project as a team, drawing on different skill sets at different times to most effectively address the client’s requirements. It was a logical step to draw on two of our senior consultants to develop the content of the book. The book also answers the many questions we get from participants in our conference presentations, webinars and workshops. The book provides a solid foundation for anyone hoping to improve the way they create, manage, and deliver content.  Many companies tend to leave the content strategy to the IT developers, and many IT developers tend to shy away from serious discussions about content.

In your opinion, how can companies ensure that a unified content strategy will be developed?

A business case for a unified content strategy should always be presented from the business perspective. That is, issues surrounding content are not merely technology problems. Rather, they are complex business challenges that affect a company’s bottom line, and should be addressed as such. The IT and the business side should be partners in a unified content project, with both sides responsible and accountable for process and quality improvements, reduced costs and ultimately, greater customer satisfaction.

In your book, you talk about separating form and content. It’s one thing doing that for structured content, but is there any risk in doing that with unstructured content?

The goal of a unified content strategy is to define structure for previously unstructured content. So, once you’ve analyzed and modeled your materials, the content is no longer unstructured. With content that is left unstructured, for example documents that are not broken down further than a title, subheadings and document body, you can still separate the form from the content.

The content is in fact structured, just to a very high level of granularity. If your authors create content using stylesheets or templates, the style tags can still be “mapped” to different formats for different media. However, if authors do not use styles or adhere to a template, you cannot easily separate format from content.

As you’ve written, creating metadata can be difficult and time-consuming. How can organizations learn to consistently create metadata across the enterprise for retrieval, tracking and assembling for re-use? Should there be a set of Internet standards for creating controlled vocabularies, etc?

Internet standards for creating controlled vocabularies would be helpful, but individual organizations don’t need to wait for these types of standards to go ahead and create their own guidelines and controlled vocabularies internally. Many sectors and industries already have terminology standards that can be adapted and used to create metadata guidelines.

To be successful, a unified content strategy should be considered as an enterprise-level endeavor right from the start, even if not all areas in an organization are participating right away. Participating departments should define their own metadata with the entire organization in mind. They should solicit information from, and share it with, other departments to make sure that the metadata can be universally applied when the time comes.

Can you tell us about some of the content-related issues and challenges you’ve seen many organizations face, either on the development or the management side of things?

The most common content-related issue, and often the indicator that drives organizations to seek help in defining a unified content strategy, is the inability of either internal users of the content, or customers, to find the information they need. This manifests in many ways, including redundant content creation, increased costs due to inefficient content creation processes, and lost revenue due to customer dissatisfaction or content inconsistencies.

Organizations sometimes have a hard time getting buy-in from management, which is why they need to present a business case that demonstrates how these issues are affecting the company’s bottom line. IT and business need to work together to build a strong business case for a unified content strategy, and to select and implement the proper tools to support the solution. Too often, organizations have already committed to a particular tool or technology, without properly analyzing content-related business requirements ahead of time. It’s like going out and having a suit made without first taking your measurements.

In the near future, what kind of technology solutions do you see as having a powerful impact on content management in large organizations?

The move to adopt XML by many vendors has been the most significant breakthrough to date affecting content management, and will continue to benefit the content management industry moving forward, as new ways to apply its versatility to content-related issues are developed. In future, better native integration between authoring tools, content management systems and delivery systems are likely to emerge, as content management vendors gain a greater understanding of the issues and requirements of authors and publishers. Industry-specific content management solutions for areas such as health sciences and other regulated industries are being developed now.

Another area that vendors are beginning to address is the translation of content, and the integration of authoring, translation memory, content management and globalization management tools.

How do you see the Internet changing? Do you think it’s becoming a more proprietary and less open-source environment in terms of information, culture, commerce?

The Internet has been moving towards more proprietary and less open-source for years as vendors have created tools to assist people in creating and managing content on the web. As these tools have gained acceptance their proprietary focus has been overlaid on the Internet. I don’t see this changing though there will always be a role for open-source.

The Internet moved very rapidly from a tool for the academic and scientific community to the primary marketing and sales vehicle for many companies. This has dramatically changed the orientation of the Internet. However, it has continued to grow and support knowledge in more effective ways than traditional libraries and this will continue. Education, learning, knowledge, and knowledge sharing have changed for the good and it can only continue to grow.

Finally, do you have any other interesting books in progress or other projects you’d like to tell us about?

The Rockley Group is currently focusing on content/information modeling and metadata design for content reuse and management. Little or no literature exists on this topic and it is critical to the effective design of a unified content strategy. We are developing methodologies, techniques, and strategies in this area to optimize reuse, content structure and optimize the support for the models in authoring, content management, and delivery tools. We have recently developed workshops for our clients and the public on this topic. At some point in the future this may become a book.