http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Web-Design/Content-Management A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Web Design and Content Management in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Web-Design/Content-Management http://tc.eserver.org/35287.html http://tc.eserver.org/35287.html Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had the chance to experiment with WebWorks ePublisher, a set of tools that converts documents from Word, FrameMaker and DITA XML to a number of different output formats. One of those output formats is Confluence wiki. It’s been very interesting, so I thought I’d blog about it and see if anyone else wants to give it a go as well. http://tc.eserver.org/35170.html http://tc.eserver.org/35170.html If content strategy isn’t in the current budget, though, how do you convince your client to add money for it? Your client might already realize content strategy can help create measurable ROI. If they don’t, help them understand. After all, relevant and informative content is what their audience wants; content strategy assesses the content they have and creates a plan for what they need and how they’ll get it. http://tc.eserver.org/34694.html http://tc.eserver.org/34694.html SEO techniques will increase your search rankings and SEM will get you traffic on the top search engines. But a boatload of quality content will also accomplish these things and prepare you for the more contextual future of search. http://tc.eserver.org/34679.html http://tc.eserver.org/34679.html Be known for your content first, for your name second. I can’t bear to hear anyone say one more time that “content is king,” but the truth is simple, if painful. http://tc.eserver.org/34487.html http://tc.eserver.org/34487.html The goal was to use Subversion (SVN) as a poor man's CMS, and take advantage of great PC-based editors like DreamWeaver (for HTML) and XMetaL (for DITA). Eventually, we could add pre-commit checks and utilities to give us some of the advanced functionality we'd really like--like link management and metadata change management--but in the meantime we could do everything manually to get by. All we had to do was install Subversion and enable the WebDAV interface in Apache. But many hurdles later, I'm exhausted from jumping over them. Every one requires me to look through 20 web pages in search of a solution, and each time I surmount one obstacle, it's only to find a new one standing in my way. http://tc.eserver.org/34493.html http://tc.eserver.org/34493.html So what's wrong with using <b>, <i>, and <tt>, anyway? What's so useful about identifying things as menu items, APIs, or filenames? Here's the list of reasons that surfaced at the recent 2008 DITA/CMS Conference. What are your thoughts? http://tc.eserver.org/34455.html http://tc.eserver.org/34455.html We still had a huge, unruly Web site. It just had different graphics, a better-named Web team and more people shoveling on content and applications. Finally, out of desperation, we decided to try a new-fangled thing called a Web content management system. http://tc.eserver.org/34399.html http://tc.eserver.org/34399.html There are a wide variety of uses for Wikis and a level of interest in using them that’s matched by an extensive range of Wiki software. Wikis introduce to the Internet a collaborative model that not only allows, but explicitly encourages, broad and open participation. The idea that anyone can contribute reflects an assumption that both content quantity and quality will arise out of the ‘wisdom of the crowd.’ http://tc.eserver.org/34220.html http://tc.eserver.org/34220.html With the number of publicly offered Web service APIs, it's now much easier to get content from different Web sources and to build mashups—if you have access to the right APIs and tools. Discover how you can combine an obscure cross-domain call technique (JSONP) and a flexible JavaScript library (jQuery) to build powerful mashups surprisingly quickly. http://tc.eserver.org/34095.html http://tc.eserver.org/34095.html There’s one area that I believe user experience has lagged behind: the enterprise software space. I can’t tell you how many frustratingly unusable enterprise Web applications I’ve encountered during my 12 plus years in corporate America. As important as the user experience of enterprise software is to a business’s success, why isn’t its assessment usually a factor in technology selection? http://tc.eserver.org/34096.html http://tc.eserver.org/34096.html In this column, I’ll provide a technology selection framework that can help enterprises better assess the usability and appropriateness of enterprise applications they’re considering purchasing, with the goal of ensuring their IT (Information Technology) investments deliver fully on their value propositions. http://tc.eserver.org/34010.html http://tc.eserver.org/34010.html Much in the same way that Microsoft Word and PageMaker made desktop publishing more widely available and eliminated the need for tagging to achieve formatting, blogs and wikis are doing the same for the web. You can use WordPress to create an entire web site without knowing or using HTML. Editme.com is providing web site services using wiki technologies. These tools help users publish content with less knowledge of the underlying tagging. http://tc.eserver.org/33869.html http://tc.eserver.org/33869.html This week I caught up with Debbie Campbell, a Colorado web designer and developer and the owner of Red Kite Creative, and asked her about the latest trends in web design. I’ve been following Debbie on Twitter for a while. This week she posted a few tweets about web design and WordPress, so I asked her to share a little more. http://tc.eserver.org/33568.html http://tc.eserver.org/33568.html John Willis recently published a post that equates social publishing with social networking. While the post is pretty good, and I agree with most of the points, I need to correct the bit about the definition of social publishing. It’s way more than social networking. Let me explain. http://tc.eserver.org/33258.html http://tc.eserver.org/33258.html Many websites are still publishing content that is not core to their business. The justification is that such content will indirectly deliver benefit. This is not a good idea. Focus on the content that is directly applicable to your organization’s objectives. Any other content confuses. It wastes time and money. http://tc.eserver.org/33259.html http://tc.eserver.org/33259.html The Santa Claus approach to content management creates a content management software wish list. It believes in the magic of technology to sweep away any and every problem. Typically, those who believe in Santa don't believe in defining their processes, or figuring out just why they need a website in the first place. http://tc.eserver.org/33262.html http://tc.eserver.org/33262.html People are looking for content to help them reach their goals, and you should start any site redevelopment by drawing up a content strategy designed to satisfy the user. We're currently doing this for a couple of our clients, and working through it ourselves now we've finally found the time to revamp our own presence (the cobbler's children and all that). http://tc.eserver.org/33263.html http://tc.eserver.org/33263.html A content inventory is a relatively straightforward process of clicking through your Web site and recording what you find. We’ve developed a simple Excel spreadsheet to help you structure your findings, and some tips on how to get through it. http://tc.eserver.org/33264.html http://tc.eserver.org/33264.html There are two types of people involved in websites today: those who see content as an asset, and those who see it as a commodity. The latter better start looking for a new career. http://tc.eserver.org/33266.html http://tc.eserver.org/33266.html What's really important to measure for your website? Firstly, you need to measure how successful you are at creating, editing and publishing content. These are your web content management processes. Secondly, you need to measure reader behavior. There will also be some core website performance issues to measure. This week, I'd like to examine key web content management process measurables. http://tc.eserver.org/33267.html http://tc.eserver.org/33267.html Are the people who have least to say in your organization publishing most on your intranet or public website? Are the people who have most to say publishing least? You're not alone. Organizations are slowly realizing that managing a website is as much about what you don't publish as what you do. http://tc.eserver.org/33269.html http://tc.eserver.org/33269.html Large websites often struggle to develop an efficient and cost-effective publishing model. Centralizing publishing ensures a consistent quality of what is published, but is often slow and frustrating. Decentralized publishing is faster and often more cost-effective, but can result in inconsistent quality, unless rigorous publishing standards are adhered to. http://tc.eserver.org/33272.html http://tc.eserver.org/33272.html You take a content inventory because, before redesigning a website or intranet, you need to know what you have. This is especially important if you will be migrating your content to a new structure or new CMS - at some point you need to know every single content element. http://tc.eserver.org/33278.html http://tc.eserver.org/33278.html Personalization hasn't worked because most people don't have a compelling reason to personalize. It hasn't worked because the cost of doing it well usually significantly outweighs the benefits it delivers. It hasn't worked because managers have seen it as some Holy Grail of content management. http://tc.eserver.org/33086.html http://tc.eserver.org/33086.html One of the greatest challenges confronting intranets is ensuring that content is up-to-date, accurate and useful. In many organisations, much thought and effort is put into maintaining (and enhancing) the quality of published content. What must be realised, however, is that not all content on an intranet needs to be of equal quality. Only once this is recognised can successful strategies be put in place to support content authoring and publishing. http://tc.eserver.org/33094.html http://tc.eserver.org/33094.html The growing status of content management systems (CMSs) is now providing many organisations with an impetus to revisit and renew their intranets. Unfortunately, while the technical aspects of implementing a CMS are well understood, many organisations are struggling to identify the issues with the content, structure and management of their intranets. The good news is that by following a disciplined approach, it is possible to re-invigorate an intranet, making it deliver real business benefits, and supporting strategic goals. This article outlines a sixteen step process which guides you through to a refreshed and dynamic new intranet. http://tc.eserver.org/33100.html http://tc.eserver.org/33100.html The intranet is beginning to restructure the organization in more ways than one. Content is now an asset, and the people who manage it need to treat it as such. Managing editors, and their team, understand how technology can facilitate effective publishing, collaboration and self-service focused application development. http://tc.eserver.org/33101.html http://tc.eserver.org/33101.html There is a view in some organizations that an intranet is only for staff, so you can publish what you want. Quality content matters as much on an intranet as on a public website. Get your content right to begin with. Keep it right by removing out-of-date content. http://tc.eserver.org/32644.html http://tc.eserver.org/32644.html Outside of the tech industry, skepticism and fear are the norm when it comes to social media. But it is simply about finding the best way to communicate with an audience. Social media consists of the same content already in use: text, audio, images, and video. The difference lies in its ability to open up new channels of communication. http://tc.eserver.org/30771.html http://tc.eserver.org/30771.html Every web site is conceived and designed keeping in view a particular purpose to serve. The aim of web site may vary: some web site intends to showcase products or services of the company it belongs to, some provides information to its target audience, or some just exposes its company on the web in a brand building exercise. This is to note that whatever be the nature of web site, web copy plays it own crucial role in furthering the interest of the site. It is imperative that web content is easy-to-read, easy-to-find, and easy-to-understand. http://tc.eserver.org/30604.html http://tc.eserver.org/30604.html This document assesses WordPress 2.01 against the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. http://tc.eserver.org/30121.html http://tc.eserver.org/30121.html The problem with many Web 2.0 applications is the assumption that the community's motives are good, or at least neutral. Perlin's column explores how one of the drawbacks of Web 2.0--potential loss of control over information--has manifested itself. http://tc.eserver.org/29973.html http://tc.eserver.org/29973.html In early 2007, I started the task of reworking the ageing HyperWrite Web site. The site was originally created in 1995. It underwent a major rework (to a frames-based design) in 1997, and was reworked in 1999, 2000 and 2002. In the decade since the Web site was launched, not only has Web technology moved on, but HyperWrite's activities, focus and business direction are now quite different. Time and budget were set aside to renovate the site to better serve HyperWrite's business needs, and to serve as a practical example of the company's capabilities. http://tc.eserver.org/29544.html http://tc.eserver.org/29544.html Wiki is a category of web server software that allows users to contribute content. Collaboration is the key to Wiki, which is designed as a powerful system for online communities to build web pages and web sites. Unlike blogs and forums, all users are allowed to contribute and edit existing content. Wiki is derived from the Hawaiian term "wiki wiki" meaning "quick". The concept behind a Wiki is that collaboration on projects will move it along quicker. http://tc.eserver.org/28306.html http://tc.eserver.org/28306.html A look at three hosted wiki services that are free or relatively cheap to use and provide easy tools to set up your wiki within minutes. http://tc.eserver.org/28131.html http://tc.eserver.org/28131.html Summarizing recent CMS Watch research on portal software, Janus Boye finds that portal technology represents just the tip of the enterprise information iceberg. But given the diversity of portal scenarios, you should ask yourself which iceberg you're on. http://tc.eserver.org/27044.html http://tc.eserver.org/27044.html If a modern day Rip van Winkle woke up after just a year's sleep, he would be stunned by the buzz around Ajax today. Technology is moving very quickly in this space and whether you are a web author, a CMS developer, or a regular web user, Ajax will make some exciting changes to your world. http://tc.eserver.org/25064.html http://tc.eserver.org/25064.html Web site content must be recrudescent, repositorial, refluent, and rectilinear. What? Here's an innovative treatment of the essential attributes of online text. Find out why great web site content generally has these 14 characteristics that start with a "R". http://tc.eserver.org/24620.html http://tc.eserver.org/24620.html A dynamically-delivered site in and of itself need not denigrate your search engine rankings. Google and other spiders can follow dynamically-generated pages, up to a point. The key is to have links elsewhere on the site pointing specifically to those pages. If each page results from a purely dynamic query (e.g. using session variables), then you could be in trouble. http://tc.eserver.org/24625.html http://tc.eserver.org/24625.html Putting content in a database will not inherently make your website more dynamic. Making sure that content providers keep information fresh, interesting, and relevant will make your website more dynamic -- and ultimately more useful. http://tc.eserver.org/22648.html http://tc.eserver.org/22648.html In this White Paper, we examine the benefits of automated content management, and demonstrate where efficiencies can be gained within your organization. Web sites with more than a few information pages may benefit from content management systems (CMS). Content management systems are automated tools that allow for web site content to be created and administered on a recurring basis. The result puts the responsibility for content development into the hands of the authors (where it belongs) and out of the hands of the programmers. http://tc.eserver.org/18308.html http://tc.eserver.org/18308.html The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Internet Scout Project [1] received funding in the fall of 2000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation [2] to build an open source software package that would allow collection developers to share their collection's metadata via the web. The resulting software, the Scout Portal Toolkit (SPT), is virtually turnkey, very inexpensive to maintain and operate, and easy for non-technical staff to download, set up and populate with metadata. Conforming to international standards for metadata, data harvesting, and Web technology makes SPT useful for and usable by a wide variety of projects and organizations, allowing and encouraging collaboration and record sharing among projects. Over the SPT project's two-year period, beta testers and in-house quality assurance testing provided valuable feedback, helping to ensure that the software was robust, easy to use, and well-suited to the needs of the intended audience. http://tc.eserver.org/14593.html http://tc.eserver.org/14593.html This paper advocates an often-neglected search-support technique, approximate or 'fuzzy' matching of user search terms. When properly deployed, fuzzy matching can significantly enhance the benefits of other, more common approaches to end-user answer retrieval from online reference collections. We compare crude with more sophisticated approximation techniques to explain how astute fuzzy-match software can convert many different near-miss situations (such as those involving faulty prefixes or suffixes, character misplacement, nonstandard word stems, or unanticipated redescription of concepts) into more adequate results. We also suggest practical ways to overcome fuzzy matching's own major drawbacks (namely, problems with search speed, search imprecision, and misinterpretation of search results). The resulting analysis clarifies how to deploy fuzzy matching for maximum effectiveness. We conclude that appropriate fuzzy matching enables more frequent, more flexible search success than do ordinary retrieval-improvement techniques used without it. http://tc.eserver.org/14584.html http://tc.eserver.org/14584.html This paper describes the Electronic Resource Library (ERL) at http://plutonium-erl.actx.edu. This is a web-based, subject-oriented digital library on the topic of plutonium and its ancillary disciplines. Previous research analyzing differences in the information-seeking behavior of scientists and engineers is reviewed and lessons learned applied to this digital library model. Special consideration has been given to recommendations in the SATCOM report from the National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering Committee on Scientific and Technical Communication. This report strongly advocated the development of “specialized need-groupservices” to support the work of the engineer and practitioner. http://tc.eserver.org/14225.html http://tc.eserver.org/14225.html Introduces the breadth of decision-making required in EPSS design. Explores choices and challenges facing designers in the design process, performance cycle, technology constraints, use of storytelling techniques, evaluation, and success factors. http://tc.eserver.org/14219.html http://tc.eserver.org/14219.html This paper describes the decisions by which the Association for Computing Machinery integrated good features from the Los Alamos e-print (physics) archive and from Cornell University's Networked Computer Science Technical Reference Library to form their own open, permanent, online “computing research repository” (CoRR). Submitted papers are not refereed and anyone can browse and extract CoRR material for free, so CoRR's eventual success could revolutionize computer science publishing. But several serious challenges remain: some journals forbid online preprints, the CoRR user interface is cumbersome, submissions are only self-indexed, (no professional library staff manages the archive) and long-term funding is uncertain. http://tc.eserver.org/14174.html http://tc.eserver.org/14174.html The content management market comprises systems designed specifically to drive Web sites, including capacity planning, site design/layout, look/feel navigation, content development, production, content delivery, session tracking, and site evolution. The core focus of these products is empowering business users to create Web site content, providing processes to ensure the approval of all content and maintain its consistency/life-cycle management (B2C, B2B, B2E). WCM does not extend to the display, personalization, or associated transactions. This category expands to include Web developers, Webmasters, and site creators as well as business users. Increasingly, overlap exists with portal and other unstructured content categories (e.g., software configuration management, digital asset management, document management). http://tc.eserver.org/14196.html http://tc.eserver.org/14196.html Gerry McGovern is a world-renowned content-management expert and author of the books, 'Content Critical' and 'The Web Content Style Guide'. User Interface Engineering's Christine Perfetti and Josh Porter recently talked with Gerry about the importance of an editorial perspective in a web development process. Here is what Gerry had to say about his experiences.