What are the benefits of establishing a clear Content Model before beginning your development process versus constructing one as you go?

  • 14 July 2022
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What are the benefits of establishing a clear Content Model before beginning your development process versus constructing one as you go or not creating one at all?

What issues do you foresee arising down the line if your Content Model is not established first?


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With a clear content model at the beginning you normalize your content in a structured way. You will have a better understanding what pieces of content will be needed for the presentation layer and as meta content as well. All content fields should fit for its use if it is good planed. Otherwise when you adjust content models as you go you probably affect created content as well. For example when a field type has to be change you will have in worst case a data loss and/or some adjusments needed in design and development  too afterwards. 
For a good development and design the whole content type should be ready for use so they will build their work on a good fundament

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I guess that clear model help you to avoid extra work with your content type

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I guess that clear model help you to avoid extra work with your content type

Completely agree with you. Establishing a clear Content Model before beginning the development process offers several benefits compared to constructing one as you go. It ensures consistency in structuring and organizing content throughout the development process, saving time and effort that would otherwise be spent on restructuring and modifying the content structure during development. Additionally, it promotes reconciliation and collaboration between different stakeholders, including developers, content creators, and editors. Although adjustments and refinements to content models may still be made during the development process, having a clear initial framework provides a starting point and reduces the need for rework.

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With a clear content model at the beginning you normalize your content in a structured way. You will have a better understanding what pieces of content will be needed for the presentation layer and as meta content as well. All content fields should fit for its use if it is good planed. Otherwise when you adjust content models as you go you probably affect created content as well. For example when a field type has to be change you will have in worst case a data loss and/or some adjusments needed in design and development  too afterwards. 
For a good development and design the whole content type should be ready for use so they will build their work on a good fundament

I agree.

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Effective content modeling not only helps the end user experience, but also the contributor experience. I was pleased to see in the content modeling training an emphasis on ease of content contribution, too many times I’ve seen a CMS designed for the web site but not for the contributors, creating huge headaches for the very people that keep the site updated!

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A clear content model helps you to select the right fields and pieces that you want to use for the page in a structured way. You can get a clear picture of which elements are needed and you have a plan for the individual ContentTypes

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A clear structure for the content and an overview of all relevant content at the beginning makes it possible to design content that meets all requirements such as SEO-friendly, simple operation for the editors and clear structures to efficiently query the API and generate web pages or applications.

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I completely agree with the previous speakers.
Basically, like everywhere else, if you rush forward without a plan, you will eventually hit a wall ;-)
But if you put your energy into a good structure and structure in advance, it will quickly become easier for you to create the content types you need and avoid redundancies.

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