Problems Collecting and Creating Website Content

Although clients may often think that creating, collecting, and editing website content will be easy, it is actually quite difficult to provide content that fits well into a new site. It is commonly believed that content can be reused from other sources. However, because the format of the web is so different from other media, rarely does existing content fit naturally into a website. At the very least, the content needs to be heavily edited. This can create a real "chicken and the egg" dilemma regarding the issue of content creation. On the one hand, designers and developers want to see as much content as possible before designing and constructing a site. Knowing exactly how long and complex a certain form is, how many product sheets there are, or what the charts, graphs and tables look like, can give them good clues for visual design, information design, and page structure. The clients, on the other hand, need to know what they are providing content for, how long it should be, and the basic purpose for its use. They might assume that certain existing brochures or information sheets might simply drop into place. This dilemma sets the stage for many small miscommunications that cause changes and delays to the project.

Working through a grayscreen prototype prior to design and development allows for effective communication with clients thereby overcoming the many barriers inherent to web development. This approach takes problematic dynamics in web development such as these and turns them into positive dynamics. Prototyping allows the client and development team to mock up the content of the site with "dummy" information, but structure it in a way that matches the final product. This allows the designers to do a good job designing appropriately to the content while giving enough clues to the content provider to submit content in a form that will fit the site as it has been structured. For example, the prototype might contain "dummy" copy on a main section page. It might be a paragraph long with the first sentence reading, "Introductory paragraph for the general product page, should highlight major benefits of the product line." Or, on a complex page, the prototype might show the general layout of a form and what the pull-down choices might be. Although this "dummy" information might not be exhaustive, it gives both the developers and the client a good idea of what kind of information is expected for the various areas of the site.

This approach to mocking up content in a prototype also helps root out any miscommunications about scope, or complexity of content. If the developer, anticipating what a client might need on a particular page, mocks up the content as they think it should be, the client can then react to it. If the client expected more detail than is represented in the prototype they can alert the developer and work it out. If there is less detail, the prototype can be adjusted as well. Making adjustments to the prototype is much easier at this early stage of development and can save incredible amounts of time and money later.

Creating appropriate content is one area of difficulty and potential confusion, actually delivering the content is also a frequent problem. Clients consistently underestimate the amount of time necessary for content creation and collection. Once a prototype is in place it becomes not only an aid in content creation, but also a means of coordinating and delivering content. The specifics of how the prototype can be used in this way are discussed in our book Client vs. Developer Wars.

Using site prototypes to aid in content creation and collection helps the client to know roughly what the content should be like which facilitates the process of content integration. Newfangled has also developed a whitescreen process that solves the problematic area of content collection and creation.