Content Management
This is probably the most difficult thing to do in a typical website. No wonder there are so many successful Content Management Systems in place. No wonder Narayanan Murthy stressed on data, as a very important part of any system. It is no wonder, that when it comes to developing world class websites most of us fail. It is not due to a lack of quality software or poor aesthetics. The underlying reason why any website fails in today's world of information is simply due to poor or no content management, or a lack of high quality content all together.
I have been heavily involved in the development of a new website for my college. Right from the very beginning it was the content of this site that took top priority. We wanted to focus on getting quality content in place for an undergraduate institute. It was with this reason that we chose to work with content management systems, chose to integrate databases with a predefined schema while not involving ourselves in those details right from the word go. All we wanted to achieve was to get a proper structure in place for the content and then to get the appropriate content for that structure from the correct resources. That itself took us nearly an year, given that we had exams and coursework to deal with, and after some time i had to go pick up a job.
There are a lot of details that go into an activity of such magnitude, ie coming out with good quality content in good volumes for an institute which has been there for about 17 years now. Right from its historical inception to its recent achievements, its a tough ask. And that is just the easy bit. Once you have acquired that you really need to keep updating that information quite regularly.
These are some of the issues we faced in figuring out the content:
1. We could never quite come to a common ground on the tab order until 3 days ago. Same goes with the case of the side links. There was a lot of debate on which links should go in the side bar and main menu tab as well. Careful planning and a lot of debate is required.
2. A thorough research is required for history. There is no way around it.
3. The usual typos and grammaticals will always haunt you no matter what. But becasue the content changes with great frequency, you really do not have the time to correct it all that much. So what ever goes up has to be as error free as possible.
4. Choosing the right kind fo pictures is the most difficult thing to do. Most websites have images that they pick up from the Google Image search. It is important to have custom images just like custom text and data. It indicates authenticity.
5. Prioritizing of content which largely is related to the tab ordering in point one. But the problem goes a little but deeper than that. A lot of content within a single page requires to be gone about with some priority. This will take you back to the essay writing classes you probably struggled with during school. But trust me, if you set out to make a world class website, it will come back to that exact struggle.
These were just a few basic issues anyone would face while developing content for such a project. Hope this helps. I feel that the content is more important than the feature set of the site itself. "Why?" you ask. Simply because, the presenting the content well is the very purpose of existence for the feature set, and not the other way round.