[Sigia-l] The Intersection/Collision of Content Management and IA

[Margaret Hanley]

Hey Todd,
In my experience leading the IA for a large content
management application at the BBC (not the one John
O'Donovan talked about), here are my answers to your
questions.

> Questions:
> - Has there been work on the role of IA diagrams and IA
> people within
> CM, CMS deployments and CMS operations?

The IA (if you take interaction design into this as well -
they are separate roles in the BBC) roles were:
* Interaction design of the content entry interface (total
reworking of the front end) - 2-4 people
* Content modelling - 2 people
* Creation of CVs, 6 CVs of different complexity created or
modified, including subject, location and proper name - 3
people
* Template design and re-architecture of the sites - we did
it badly for lack of resources, allocation and
responsiblity assigned to the client, not the IA team - 1
person
* Content development and archiving policies - how do we
manage this content (move from most recent to archive to
delete), migrate it into the system and how much do we
have) - 1 person

> - In a shop of 30+ people is it best practice to have no
> defined IA
> person/role?

I think it depends..if the actual activites have a clear
owner (Todd's good at this) and are being managed well, you
are OK. If not, you may need this specific role and skills.

> - Is it common for an ecommerce site to not have a
> documented, managed
> IA diagram? (We are actually a pretty small, focused
> transactional site
> of under 3,000 pages.)

Most sites do NOT have a documented top-down IA, until they
want to re-organise, put into a CMS or database. They grow
organically. If you want to see and manage the content, you
may want to map the existing structure and then  it.

> 
> With luck this will be THE topic of next year's IA Summit
> pre-session.
> Perhaps a 200 or 300 level session in addition to the
> (very well done)
> 100 level session offered this year.

I'd actually love to talk through my experiences. :)

At the CMS BOF, we found that most people were talking
about the choosing and technical application of the CMS,
rather than how an IA works with the system. Maybe next
year, we can go through the IA deliverables (CVs and
content model), see a demo of the semi-automatic
classification engine we are implementing at the Beeb and
talk through content sharing.

I think I've just talked myself into a presentation.

Mags


	
	
		
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