The precept of separating content material from its presentation is extra crucial than ever. So why is it so laborious to get buy-in for it?
This publish takes a deep have a look at the FUD (Concern, uncertainty, and doubt) surrounding separation. It’s going to deal with why FUD is prevalent and why it’s misplaced:
- How content material and design separation is totally different at this time from the way it was thought-about prior to now
- Why instruments make it tough to separate content material from design
- The issues arising from design-defined content material
- The dodgy the reason why visible modifying instruments and DIY design are standard
- How separation promotes readability
- Why the which means of content material is unbiased of its presentation
- Why content material’s which means is persistent
- How every kind of content material have gotten format free
- The issues for customers when counting on presentation to make clear content material
- Why dependence on presentation results in ambiguity for AI and assistive applied sciences
- The significance of supporting presentation modifications that don’t require content material modifications
- Why “{custom}” pages nonetheless want separation
- How content material meeting is totally different from content material presentation
- The 2 distinct sorts of meeting
- How content material meeting offers authors lacking management
- Why dangerous implementations generate FUD about separation
- Why trapped content material will change into the brand new fear
An idea’s lengthy journey towards acceptance
The precept of separating content material from its presentation is a robust and helpful concept that can also be controversial and resisted by folks in all roles.
Resistance comes not simply from writers accustomed to WYSIWYG editors. Builders can exaggerate the complexity of content-design separation or query its practicality. UX designers don’t all the time see its worth. Distributors additionally play on this worry and promote options that undermine implementing mature practices.
Even individuals who agree with the idea in precept usually abandon it when it looks like it’s an excessive amount of effort.
Why doesn’t the idea of separating presentation from content material get extra love if it’s really beneficial? The straightforward reply is that the idea is so radical and highly effective that it’s simple to misconceive. FUD units in and disrupts progress.
Separation issues now greater than ever. Discussions about separating content material from presentation have an extended historical past. Why revisit this matter now?
Previous discussions, responding to modifications occurring within the early 2000s, don’t account for the present modifications reshaping at this time’s digital ecosystems (e.g., the event of design methods, structured content material, and the shift to composable and headless architectures.) UX practices have lagged behind these modifications, that are forcing groups to re-examine assumptions concerning the fundamentals of how consumer experiences are developed and carried out.
What’s at stake is how we resolve to create what we talk:
- Does the content material of internet pages rely on their format?
- Does an creator have to work round a predefined design or change the design to match their content material?
- Ought to the format regulate to the content material?
The renewed relevance of an previous debate. The topicality of separating content material from its presentation has assumed renewed significance. Whereas beforehand debated points stay related, the context of the dialogue has shifted over time.
Separating presentation from content material is a long-established internet design precept. It has earned its personal Wikipedia entry and Wikidata identifier (Q3511030). The idea has an excellent older heritage as an extension of the precept of the “separation of issues” used to design methods.
20 years in the past, the W3C took a major, if incremental, step when it determined to jettison presentational tags (corresponding to daring and italic) in favor of semantic ones (like sturdy and emphasis). Although presentational parts weren’t fully abolished—underlining nonetheless exists–the choice signaled the expectation that presentation can be managed individually from content material.
Partisans debated the decision to separate content material from presentation as CSS started to displace presentational markup in HTML. For a lot of discussants, the talk was by no means about content material or presentation. It was about nothing greater than CSS.
However others considered the problem extra existentially and contested the desirability and feasibility of eager about content material individually from its presentation. Web sites continued to be designed with wireframes earlier than any content material was created. Builders crafted frontend frameworks composed of UI parts that usually outlined the content material offered on an internet site. It was laborious for some folks to think about content material with out having the ability to “see” how it will be offered.
Folks settled into their conclusions and routines.
Currently, the fault strains between content material and presentation have been uncovered once more. Distributors have struggled (poorly, for my part) with ship “visible modifying” whereas concurrently supporting structured content material, which has loved a renaissance of curiosity. Distributors have been making an attempt to graft UI format parts (front-end) and content material blocks (back-end) right into a “common editor.” Some front-end frameworks flip each variable into a standard pool of JSON knowledge.
On the similar time, technical developments are erasing prior distinctions between how we distinguish content material, codecs, and displays. Computer systems are taking on many presentation choices. All types of media can now be generated from textual content.
These developments have prompted a reexamination of core ideas. Content material and design are actually ruled by separate methods (content material fashions and design methods) which have particular obligations. The content material expresses “what” data and messages comprise, whereas the design expresses “how” messages and data are offered, sometimes format and formatting, however not restricted to these dimensions.
Separating content material and presentation brings transparency. The assumption that what you say and the way you say it are indivisible is an phantasm. They don’t seem to be bonded collectively in a hermetically sealed bundle, however are distinct concepts and objectives.
That’s to not suggest what content material says and the way it’s stated are unrelated. Fairly, the fact is that every facet has unbiased energy. The presentation could make trivial and even false particulars appear necessary, and it will probably bury necessary ones. Likewise, crucial data could be neglected by poor presentation.
The presentation does matter. Nevertheless it’s a definite dimension from content material.
Content material modifications are express. The details in content material generally change, and messages could have to adapt to audiences. However the presentation is way more implicit and contextual. Displays can change on a whim. Even when the content material stays constant, the presentation could change radically relying on the place and when it seems.
The viewers expertise is derived from each the content material and its presentation. It’s necessary to grasp the contribution of every to that have.
Coping with separation anxiousness
Loss aversion is a robust motivation. As a result of our eager about conditions is anchored in how we habitually expertise them, it may be laborious to embrace a unique expertise. What’s acquainted is reassuring; what’s novel is disruptive. When your baby is leaving for a week-long camp away from residence, she or he could have separation anxiousness. Equally, when your content material is separated from its design, it will probably really feel disorienting.
Content material professionals have change into accustomed to eager about content material and presentation collectively. They anticipate to see what the content material will appear to be and infrequently anticipate to alter that look as nicely.
Instruments can lull us into believing content material and presentation are inseparable. Two interplay paradigms have formed authors’ expectations about how content material and presentation work together. Whereas very totally different, each suggest that content material ought to change based mostly on the presentation chosen.
The primary method is represented by WYSIWYG instruments, such because the web page builders in lots of CMSs, which permit authors to format textual content and graphics any means they please. This method encourages authors to regulate their content material and presentation concurrently.
The second method is represented by instruments that use design templates that information what content material to create. In conventional CMSs, the creation of the content material is guided by the way it will seem on a web page. A template defines what content material is required. The content material should adapt to the presentation outlined by the template.
When content material relies on its presentation, the design decides the content material’s particulars. Quite a few on-line instruments promote the notion that the event of content material relies on its format. The dramatic reputation of Figma in designing internet pages is an excessive instance. Writers play a junior function on UX groups, filling in phrases in a graphic design format. Whereas such instruments could promise the liberty of self-expression, they have an inclination to impose constraints on making modifications to layouts.
However content material additionally wants to alter. Every time the content material modifications however depends on a set presentation, it creates a battle. The presentation restricts what content material is allowed.
A significant motivation for separating content material and presentation is to make displays extra versatile and changeable. The separation of content material from presentation has expanded with the decoupling of frontend and backend methods. This decoupling permits content material to be offered in a number of methods and permits the presentation to alter shortly.
Whereas the technical means to separate content material from presentation are established and rising, the capability of organizations to handle these dimensions stays immature. Some organizations keep away from confronting change and favor expediency over enchancment.
Separating issues about instruments from processes
Quite a few on-line modifying instruments permit writers to alter fonts, resize photos, align textual content, change spacing, change the variety of columns, and so forth. Many present extra superior format options, such because the positioning of headings, the colour of fonts, and full shade and format themes.
“Visible modifying” instruments are a Band-Assist. Instruments that permit authors to alter each the content material and its look are standard, and CMS distributors maintain selling them. However a clumsy query arises: Why ought to an creator make choices a couple of web page’s format? The group they work for seemingly publishes hundreds of internet pages. Shouldn’t all these pages have to observe frequent presentation pointers reasonably than have particular person authors resolve how particular person pages seem? Isn’t the UX design staff presupposed to be answerable for the presentation?
The need of authors to resolve the presentation is an previous theme. DIY internet design was as soon as prevalent in organizations, and its issues prompted the emergence of design methods to reign in such patchwork design.
When DIY internet design persists, it signifies a failure in a company’s UX processes.
Some authors need presentation choices out of necessity. They’re given a generic clean web page and are anticipated to vogue it right into a significant expertise. They hope that they’ll try this by dragging and dropping widgets on a display screen. If efficient UX design have been really really easy, hundreds of thousands of UX designers can be out of labor.
Different occasions, authors are attempting to override a inflexible and poorly designed format template that doesn’t assist the presentation of the content material they’ve developed.
In each instances, the creator has been shortchanged by their UX design colleagues, who failed to offer them with a serviceable format for his or her content material.
Separating content material from presentation forces organizations to confront how nicely they perceive their publishing necessities. When massive numbers of pages should be custom-designed as a result of every is taken into account a “particular case,” that’s a sign that the group hasn’t deliberate its presentation adequately. Particular instances, by definition, are exceptions, not defaults. No group ought to really feel overwhelmed by the quantity of {custom} internet pages it should design.
The purpose of separation is to boost readability, not implement model. When the idea of separation first emerged with the usage of CSS, it turned linked to the notion of styling. However to view the presentation as merely styling is a crude understanding of the precept.
Separation acknowledges that there isn’t a “one finest means” to current content material. What’s finest is contextual to the scenario and provisional till a more moderen presentation proves more practical. The identical underlying content material could be offered in a number of methods, which may shift how it’s perceived, understood, or consumed. The purpose of separating content material and presentation is to permit a number of displays of the identical content material, a few of which can be higher and clearer than others.
Separation permits the content material to learn from iterative design enhancements. Presentation requirements evolve to replicate learnings about what works most successfully. Separation permits UI parts which are used throughout many content material gadgets, corresponding to heroes or alerts, to be examined and improved.
Sure, Virginia, content material remains to be significant with out presentation
Separation requires a shift in mindset and follow. Folks could push again by proclaiming that it will probably’t be completed – that the notion is nonsensical, that it threatens the magic content material can supply.
A standard objection contends that content material can’t be stripped of its presentation and stay intelligible. This view holds that presentation is integral to the which means of content material, so it will probably’t be separated from the content material. In any case, if presentation helps the which means of content material, then content material with out presentation should be meaningless, proper?
To deal with categorical objections like this, it’s essential to unpack beliefs about how experiences change into significant. Doing so helps to clear the cobwebs of unexamined assumptions and spotlight the modifications occurring in digital practices.
The which means of content material is unbiased of its presentation. Whereas the presentation is vital in conveying which means within the broadest sense (by stressing emphasis or salience), it doesn’t observe that content material relies upon on a selected presentation.
Content material could also be more durable to grasp with out its presentation, however not often is it contingent on its presentation to convey its which means as a result of that means the presentation materially modifications the which means of the content material, which ought to by no means be the case. The presentation can change with out altering the which means of the content material.
The precept of independence has some radical implications:
- Authors should let go of preconceptions of how their content material will seem, both now or later. The content material’s look is topic to alter.
- The content material is unbiased of the media it might seem in as nicely.
But as a result of content material can exist in lots of kinds (media), it’s generally tough to tell apart what’s content material from what’s presentation.
Merely put, the content material represents the substance or essence of what’s offered. That essence needs to be outlined exactly and never be topic to variable interpretation. The substance doesn’t rely on its context: It’s going to stay the identical wherever it’s offered.
Content material’s which means is persistent, nonetheless or wherever it’s offered. The literal which means of content material is fastened by its encoding. Its presentation could affect its connotation however not its literal which means.
Communication–the flexibility of various folks to breed the identical message–relies on distilling the essence of a message – its content material– from how it’s offered.
All through historical past, folks have encoded the which means of content material through the use of standardized notations. These requirements permit individuals who have no idea each other to interpret the content material in a constant means.
The substance of content material is usually outlined as textual content, symbols, or structured knowledge of some kind that may be composed or compiled into varied displays. As laptop expertise continues to advance, it’s changing into simpler to interrupt down content material displays into constituent parts and separate the content material from its presentation.
Writing began through the use of symbols to face for issues or ideas. Then, writing developed symbols for the sounds of phrases – utilizing letters, phonetic alphabets, and even shorthand symbols.
Later, folks developed notation to signify music and even dance. The symbols don’t must be visible. Braille can signify letters or sounds.
As symbols change into formalized, they change into unbiased of a selected presentation. At first, writing was handwritten, then engraved, and later typeset; with every step, the content material turned much less tied to its authentic presentation.
Textual content is a surprisingly versatile technique to signify content material that may be reworked into displays in every kind of media. Even the richest content material media – the film – is constructed from a textual content script. AI has proven the probabilities of producing audio and video from textual content.
The development has developed to separate content material from its presentation. All types of content material could be extracted and separated from their displays, whereas displays in lots of codecs could be constructed from “uncooked” content material. For instance, an audio recording could be changed into a textual content transcript, and that textual content can be utilized to generate one other audio presentation that includes a unique voice or perhaps a totally different language.
Maps have been traditionally thought-about content material that was inseparable from its presentation. What worth is a map exterior of its presentation? However maps at this time are databases of structured content material that may be offered in a number of methods. The identical data could be offered as a avenue map or a satellite tv for pc picture or depend on textual content labels or icons, for instance. Maps are manifested by way of their presentation however should not outlined by any particular presentation.
Skeptics could object that sure sorts of content material all the time rely on their presentation. If a presentation can solely be offered in a method, then it’s content material. Presentation, by definition, implies that there’s a couple of technique to current one thing. The presentation just isn’t fastened.
Photographs as media could be content material or displays, relying on their essence. The unique supply file of a photograph picture is content material, however subsequent cropping, edits and coverings of the picture are displays of the unique content material. The development in picture manipulation is towards non-destructive modifying.
Even visible content material could be represented non-visually. Many content material creators consider that visible content material has a set presentation and thus can’t be separated from the content material it represents. That assumption is being challenged in an increasing number of domains.
Think about diagrams. Whereas diagrams are supposed to be visible, they don’t have to be represented visually. There are a number of approaches to representing diagrams as textual content, which may generate various visible renderings of the diagram. Neither the format of diagrams nor its presentation are fastened.
What about music? Since music depends on commonplace symbols positioned on a employees, it will appear to have a set presentation. However whereas sheet music is the most well-liked illustration of a music rating, it isn’t the one possibility. Music scores can be represented as textual content utilizing the ABC notation, which may generate a visible rating. Digital music compositions can be represented utilizing the MIDI protocol, which could be manipulated to generate various displays of the composition.
Arithmetic is one other sort of content material that’s usually offered visually however doesn’t not must be represented with a set presentation. Although arithmetic makes use of broadly understood symbols, their presentation could be variable. Sure mathematical statements could be offered in a couple of means. Arithmetic has developed two parallel markups: one for the content material and one for its presentation.
The presentation ought to add which means, not change which means. Presentation provides context to content material, which may improve its which means. The presentation helps outline the intent for a way readers will expertise the content material.
The identical content material ought to all the time imply the identical factor, nonetheless it’s offered. The one scenario the place a presentation will alter the intrinsic which means is that if it reinterprets the content material’s authentic intent by altering the collection of particulars — the method of context shifting. This may increasingly occur unintentionally when the content material is poorly developed. For instance, it might be doable {that a} much less detailed view of the content material offers a unique impression than the views with full particulars. Or it might happen when the content material can assist eventualities past what was initially envisioned, which shifts how the content material is known. As a result of these conditions are doable with decoupling, it’s crucial to develop content material that isn’t wedded to preconceptions of how it will likely be offered, since future displays can’t be identified prematurely.
One cause machines (whether or not assistive expertise or AI bots) misread content material is that the content material is ambiguous, counting on contextual cues to clarify what it’s meant to say. The W3C has warned of the reliance on visible construction to convey the which means of content material: “Whereas presentational options visually suggest construction — customers can decide headings, paragraphs, lists, and so on. from the formatting conventions used — these options don’t encode the construction unambiguously sufficient for assistive expertise to work together with the web page successfully.”
Presentation can’t repair ambiguity in content material. In case your content material relies on the way it’s offered to be understood appropriately, then the content material itself is probably going ambiguous and inherently complicated. The function of presentation is to attach concepts which are intelligible on their very own, to not make unintelligible concepts in some way discernible by way of hand-waving.
Some manufacturers, sadly, publish fragments of content material whose which means is unintelligible with out seeing the context wherein it seems. These practices have change into extra prevalent lately, because the fetish of minimalism has been rationalized as selling simplicity and value, even when it usually leads to the other impact. Readers are anticipated to guess the which means of a touch or icon based mostly on different content material offered elsewhere. These hidden meanings, whereas seemingly elegant, fail to tell the display screen reader consumer or move authorized compliance critiques for readability and the absence of potential misinterpretation. The ubiquity of dangerous practices doesn’t legitimize them. Fairly, they exhibit the necessity for content material to be express and clear unbiased of its presentation.
Treating communication as a “content material design” bundle has resulted in quite a few examples of misleading design practices the place important data is suppressed. These examples are deceptive exactly as a result of the content material, by itself, doesn’t absolutely or candidly convey the data customers have to know to make an knowledgeable choice.
Illusions of management
How ought to choices be made about how content material seems? A person’s latitude to make choices concerning the presentation of content material just isn’t synonymous with the group’s capability to make these decisions.
Some authors protest after they don’t have choices to alter the styling or format of their content material. They soar to the conclusion that the presentation can’t be modified and consider that their enter is critical to resolve how the content material seems to be. In essence, they assume in the event that they don’t see an possibility to alter the presentation, that possibility doesn’t exist.
Although authors should not answerable for the presentation, that doesn’t suggest that the presentation is fastened. Organizations can change the presentation every time they need to. Organizations usually purpose to have varied content material they publish offered in a constant method as a result of such constantly promotes readability and understanding. They don’t need to encourage the helter-skelter redesigns of particular person internet pages.
The presentation can change independently of the content material. The presentation just isn’t fastened and might change readily when the group decides to take action.
But, such modifications should not the byproduct of content material modifications. They’re separate choices. What meaning is:
- Altering the content material doesn’t alter its presentation or format. For instance, an extended title gained’t essentially shrink in font measurement to suit a set area.
- Altering the content material and altering the presentation should not concurrent actions as a result of separate methods handle them. If you wish to regulate each the content material and the presentation, you’ll want to pivot between separate modes.
The second level raises a query: May the identical particular person change each the content material and its presentation? In precept, sure. However in follow, the 2 sides are meant to be ruled individually. Every has guidelines for what’s allowed and modifications should conform to those guidelines. For instance, the content material can’t use nonstandard phrases or punctuation. Equally, the presentation can’t incorporate nonstandard colours or fonts.
The presentation is set by guidelines that apply to a number of pages, not by particular person decisions for particular pages. Some people deride guidelines for constricting their expression or stopping them from configuring their internet pages as they’d like. However guidelines aren’t stifling. They really simplify processes and broaden the scope of doable modifications by enabling international modifications. By having guidelines, organizations can change the content material in all places on an internet site with out worrying that it’ll break the design and power fixes to the presentation. They will additionally change the presentation globally with out worrying about needing to regulate present content material.
Singleton pages exhibit the necessity for separation. Many objections to separation give attention to singleton pages, that are one-off pages which have distinctive content material and require a particular format as a result of the character of the content material is not like content material elsewhere. An instance can be a webpage presenting a timeline. Whereas single pages appear to signify a good correspondence between the content material and its presentation, the presentation and content material stay unbiased of one another.
The error some folks make is to confuse design situations with design variations. Even when solely a single web page has a novel format (one design occasion), that doesn’t suggest the presentation is fastened (that there can solely be one model of that occasion.) Another presentation might be developed and used.
As a result of the group may resolve to alter the design of a novel webpage later, it’s necessary that the content material ought to lead the design, not observe it.
Content material can also be topic to alter, and displays should be ready to “flex” to regulate to content material modifications. The unique creator usually gained’t management the content material over its lifespan. Authors swap jobs, which means another person would possibly revise the content material later.
With on-line content material, there’s no single creator. All on-line content material seems alongside different on-line content material that has been created by different people at totally different occasions.
It’s essential to tell apart the content material context (what different content material is adjoining) from the context of its presentation (format, formatting, and different presentational decisions).
This will get into content material meeting: How content material is layered into bigger experiences.
Content material meeting just isn’t presentation
Content material meeting is more and more necessary as organizations transfer away from presentation-defined content material creation. Presentation-driven templated content material historically decided the content material’s meeting. As practices transfer away from utilizing templates to outline the content material, the function of meeting is changing into extra vital, although it stays poorly understood. Builders usually confuse content material meeting and content material presentation, particularly if they’ve spent careers working with template-based CMSs.
As a result of templates beforehand dealt with meeting, some folks mistakenly think about content material meeting as a part of content material presentation. However meeting is distinct from presentation. The context of the content material (the associated content material that seems collectively) is conceptually distinct from the presentation context (how these content material gadgets are offered.)
The format is detached, whereas the meeting is opinionated. The format is generic and agnostic about what content material seems in a slot. Content material meeting, against this, is particular about which content material gadgets are conceptually linked.
Meeting determines which content material items will seem collectively – although not how they’ll seem.
When meeting is subsumed by content material presentation choices, the development of the content material is fragile and brittle.
Like Humpty Dumpty, after taking a fall, poorly assembled content material can’t be reassembled. It’s breakable and is unusable.
Fragile content material that may’t be reassembled sometimes has been outlined by its design.
If content material is assembled appropriately, there needs to be no “breaking modifications.”
Not all content material meeting occurs the identical means. The most important barrier is how varied folks take into consideration content material meeting. They don’t make a distinction between two sorts of meeting:
- Intrinsic meeting, the place models should be supplied collectively to make sense and, subsequently, needs to be preassembled throughout content material growth
- Extrinsic meeting, the place variable combos might be probably provided, is finest outlined exterior of the content material growth course of.
Each the objectives and course of for intrinsic and extrinsic meeting are totally different.
Intrinsic meeting connects content material that’s intrinsically associated in which means: The items collectively type the bigger message. The content material is preassembled by way of two means:
- Linking (or referencing) gadgets
- Ordering gadgets (in lists or as arrays of things)
Intrinsic relationships are predefined: A goes with B, or A all the time precedes B. The items utilized in intrinsic meeting are usually damaged aside to assist content material reuse or upkeep reasonably than assist variability wherein items are mixed. Embedding gadgets (photos, for instance) inside one other content material merchandise is one other sort of intrinsic meeting, albeit much less predefined than linking, because the choice of whether or not to embed is non-compulsory.
Extrinsic meeting is used when the communication is extra contextual and situationally dependent. It usually attracts on content material variations which were developed to deal with extremely particular conditions the place the best mixture can’t be preassembled simply as a result of they contain too many eventualities.
Extrinsic meeting depends on predefining evaluative guidelines or creating directions that aren’t fastened. These guidelines outline which items and choose what attributes they need to have beneath particular situations. This sort of programmatic meeting is commonly based mostly on contextual guidelines regarding processes.
Generally guidelines could be written right into a schema corresponding to JSON Schema when they’re persistent as if—then—else statements. In any other case, the principles are written into code when matching particular variables and values. The foundations or directions might be written in GraphQL, Javascript, or another programming language.
Authors have management over the meeting. As soon as organizations embrace true separation of content material from its presentation by guaranteeing that presentation isn’t defining the meeting of content material, authors can regain management of necessary choices.
With intrinsic meeting, authors can join content material items inside their editor. Ideally, the content material mannequin behind the scenes has already outlined relationships between varied content material varieties, so the creator doesn’t want to determine which varieties belong collectively. As a substitute, they’ll give attention to associating associated content material gadgets. If gadgets should seem in a selected order to make sense to customers, they’ll point out that.
Extrinsic meeting occurs exterior the editor within the API layer. As a result of extrinsic meeting directions depend on code, builders have, till just lately, been those accountable for defining extrinsic meeting. However prior to now few years, a brand new class of content material orchestration instruments has emerged that permits authors and different enterprise customers to outline guidelines for meeting content material with no need to depend on a developer.
Content material meeting offers energy to authors to resolve which content material items to ship to audiences.
By organising content material meeting appropriately and disentangling it from presentation, organizations take away frequent “it will probably’t be completed” objections.
Poor implementations are a barrier, not an excuse for FUD
Separating content material from its presentation has triggered resistance for a few years. Change administration case research educate that folks have issue altering habits and adopting new practices. It’s a lot simpler to stay with the acquainted, even when it isn’t fascinating in the long run.
But the crucial of implementing such a separation solely retains rising. Planning and managing internet pages whose content material and designs are tangled collectively is solely not sustainable. And shifts in expertise, from composable methods to AI, require that content material be unencumbered by its formatting and presentation. Format can’t sign what content material means if for no different cause than machines gained’t see it.
Given the longstanding resistance to separation, one could marvel how the idea will ever acquire the traction essential to change into the default follow in organizations.
The excellent news is that separation is a sound idea that gives a number of advantages. Concern, uncertainty, and doubt could conspire to cloud these advantages, however they don’t negate them. Separating content material from presentation is crucial to constructing and bettering upon prior content material and design work.
The most important barrier to the common adoption of content-presentation separation is poor implementation. Dangerous instruments, weak necessities, and immature data all contribute to poor implementations, which appear to validate the expectation that separation can’t be completed.
But poor implementations, whereas frequent, are hardly inevitable. Many organizations are shifting up the maturity ladder. They acknowledge that the stakes are too necessary to disregard important transformation in UX practices. They may depart behind organizations that commingle their content material and presentation. The worry will shift to being left behind.
–Michael Andrews
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The precept of separating content material from its presentation is extra crucial than ever. So why is it so laborious to get buy-in for it?
This publish takes a deep have a look at the FUD (Concern, uncertainty, and doubt) surrounding separation. It’s going to deal with why FUD is prevalent and why it’s misplaced:
- How content material and design separation is totally different at this time from the way it was thought-about prior to now
- Why instruments make it tough to separate content material from design
- The issues arising from design-defined content material
- The dodgy the reason why visible modifying instruments and DIY design are standard
- How separation promotes readability
- Why the which means of content material is unbiased of its presentation
- Why content material’s which means is persistent
- How every kind of content material have gotten format free
- The issues for customers when counting on presentation to make clear content material
- Why dependence on presentation results in ambiguity for AI and assistive applied sciences
- The significance of supporting presentation modifications that don’t require content material modifications
- Why “{custom}” pages nonetheless want separation
- How content material meeting is totally different from content material presentation
- The 2 distinct sorts of meeting
- How content material meeting offers authors lacking management
- Why dangerous implementations generate FUD about separation
- Why trapped content material will change into the brand new fear
An idea’s lengthy journey towards acceptance
The precept of separating content material from its presentation is a robust and helpful concept that can also be controversial and resisted by folks in all roles.
Resistance comes not simply from writers accustomed to WYSIWYG editors. Builders can exaggerate the complexity of content-design separation or query its practicality. UX designers don’t all the time see its worth. Distributors additionally play on this worry and promote options that undermine implementing mature practices.
Even individuals who agree with the idea in precept usually abandon it when it looks like it’s an excessive amount of effort.
Why doesn’t the idea of separating presentation from content material get extra love if it’s really beneficial? The straightforward reply is that the idea is so radical and highly effective that it’s simple to misconceive. FUD units in and disrupts progress.
Separation issues now greater than ever. Discussions about separating content material from presentation have an extended historical past. Why revisit this matter now?
Previous discussions, responding to modifications occurring within the early 2000s, don’t account for the present modifications reshaping at this time’s digital ecosystems (e.g., the event of design methods, structured content material, and the shift to composable and headless architectures.) UX practices have lagged behind these modifications, that are forcing groups to re-examine assumptions concerning the fundamentals of how consumer experiences are developed and carried out.
What’s at stake is how we resolve to create what we talk:
- Does the content material of internet pages rely on their format?
- Does an creator have to work round a predefined design or change the design to match their content material?
- Ought to the format regulate to the content material?
The renewed relevance of an previous debate. The topicality of separating content material from its presentation has assumed renewed significance. Whereas beforehand debated points stay related, the context of the dialogue has shifted over time.
Separating presentation from content material is a long-established internet design precept. It has earned its personal Wikipedia entry and Wikidata identifier (Q3511030). The idea has an excellent older heritage as an extension of the precept of the “separation of issues” used to design methods.
20 years in the past, the W3C took a major, if incremental, step when it determined to jettison presentational tags (corresponding to daring and italic) in favor of semantic ones (like sturdy and emphasis). Although presentational parts weren’t fully abolished—underlining nonetheless exists–the choice signaled the expectation that presentation can be managed individually from content material.
Partisans debated the decision to separate content material from presentation as CSS started to displace presentational markup in HTML. For a lot of discussants, the talk was by no means about content material or presentation. It was about nothing greater than CSS.
However others considered the problem extra existentially and contested the desirability and feasibility of eager about content material individually from its presentation. Web sites continued to be designed with wireframes earlier than any content material was created. Builders crafted frontend frameworks composed of UI parts that usually outlined the content material offered on an internet site. It was laborious for some folks to think about content material with out having the ability to “see” how it will be offered.
Folks settled into their conclusions and routines.
Currently, the fault strains between content material and presentation have been uncovered once more. Distributors have struggled (poorly, for my part) with ship “visible modifying” whereas concurrently supporting structured content material, which has loved a renaissance of curiosity. Distributors have been making an attempt to graft UI format parts (front-end) and content material blocks (back-end) right into a “common editor.” Some front-end frameworks flip each variable into a standard pool of JSON knowledge.
On the similar time, technical developments are erasing prior distinctions between how we distinguish content material, codecs, and displays. Computer systems are taking on many presentation choices. All types of media can now be generated from textual content.
These developments have prompted a reexamination of core ideas. Content material and design are actually ruled by separate methods (content material fashions and design methods) which have particular obligations. The content material expresses “what” data and messages comprise, whereas the design expresses “how” messages and data are offered, sometimes format and formatting, however not restricted to these dimensions.
Separating content material and presentation brings transparency. The assumption that what you say and the way you say it are indivisible is an phantasm. They don’t seem to be bonded collectively in a hermetically sealed bundle, however are distinct concepts and objectives.
That’s to not suggest what content material says and the way it’s stated are unrelated. Fairly, the fact is that every facet has unbiased energy. The presentation could make trivial and even false particulars appear necessary, and it will probably bury necessary ones. Likewise, crucial data could be neglected by poor presentation.
The presentation does matter. Nevertheless it’s a definite dimension from content material.
Content material modifications are express. The details in content material generally change, and messages could have to adapt to audiences. However the presentation is way more implicit and contextual. Displays can change on a whim. Even when the content material stays constant, the presentation could change radically relying on the place and when it seems.
The viewers expertise is derived from each the content material and its presentation. It’s necessary to grasp the contribution of every to that have.
Coping with separation anxiousness
Loss aversion is a robust motivation. As a result of our eager about conditions is anchored in how we habitually expertise them, it may be laborious to embrace a unique expertise. What’s acquainted is reassuring; what’s novel is disruptive. When your baby is leaving for a week-long camp away from residence, she or he could have separation anxiousness. Equally, when your content material is separated from its design, it will probably really feel disorienting.
Content material professionals have change into accustomed to eager about content material and presentation collectively. They anticipate to see what the content material will appear to be and infrequently anticipate to alter that look as nicely.
Instruments can lull us into believing content material and presentation are inseparable. Two interplay paradigms have formed authors’ expectations about how content material and presentation work together. Whereas very totally different, each suggest that content material ought to change based mostly on the presentation chosen.
The primary method is represented by WYSIWYG instruments, such because the web page builders in lots of CMSs, which permit authors to format textual content and graphics any means they please. This method encourages authors to regulate their content material and presentation concurrently.
The second method is represented by instruments that use design templates that information what content material to create. In conventional CMSs, the creation of the content material is guided by the way it will seem on a web page. A template defines what content material is required. The content material should adapt to the presentation outlined by the template.
When content material relies on its presentation, the design decides the content material’s particulars. Quite a few on-line instruments promote the notion that the event of content material relies on its format. The dramatic reputation of Figma in designing internet pages is an excessive instance. Writers play a junior function on UX groups, filling in phrases in a graphic design format. Whereas such instruments could promise the liberty of self-expression, they have an inclination to impose constraints on making modifications to layouts.
However content material additionally wants to alter. Every time the content material modifications however depends on a set presentation, it creates a battle. The presentation restricts what content material is allowed.
A significant motivation for separating content material and presentation is to make displays extra versatile and changeable. The separation of content material from presentation has expanded with the decoupling of frontend and backend methods. This decoupling permits content material to be offered in a number of methods and permits the presentation to alter shortly.
Whereas the technical means to separate content material from presentation are established and rising, the capability of organizations to handle these dimensions stays immature. Some organizations keep away from confronting change and favor expediency over enchancment.
Separating issues about instruments from processes
Quite a few on-line modifying instruments permit writers to alter fonts, resize photos, align textual content, change spacing, change the variety of columns, and so forth. Many present extra superior format options, such because the positioning of headings, the colour of fonts, and full shade and format themes.
“Visible modifying” instruments are a Band-Assist. Instruments that permit authors to alter each the content material and its look are standard, and CMS distributors maintain selling them. However a clumsy query arises: Why ought to an creator make choices a couple of web page’s format? The group they work for seemingly publishes hundreds of internet pages. Shouldn’t all these pages have to observe frequent presentation pointers reasonably than have particular person authors resolve how particular person pages seem? Isn’t the UX design staff presupposed to be answerable for the presentation?
The need of authors to resolve the presentation is an previous theme. DIY internet design was as soon as prevalent in organizations, and its issues prompted the emergence of design methods to reign in such patchwork design.
When DIY internet design persists, it signifies a failure in a company’s UX processes.
Some authors need presentation choices out of necessity. They’re given a generic clean web page and are anticipated to vogue it right into a significant expertise. They hope that they’ll try this by dragging and dropping widgets on a display screen. If efficient UX design have been really really easy, hundreds of thousands of UX designers can be out of labor.
Different occasions, authors are attempting to override a inflexible and poorly designed format template that doesn’t assist the presentation of the content material they’ve developed.
In each instances, the creator has been shortchanged by their UX design colleagues, who failed to offer them with a serviceable format for his or her content material.
Separating content material from presentation forces organizations to confront how nicely they perceive their publishing necessities. When massive numbers of pages should be custom-designed as a result of every is taken into account a “particular case,” that’s a sign that the group hasn’t deliberate its presentation adequately. Particular instances, by definition, are exceptions, not defaults. No group ought to really feel overwhelmed by the quantity of {custom} internet pages it should design.
The purpose of separation is to boost readability, not implement model. When the idea of separation first emerged with the usage of CSS, it turned linked to the notion of styling. However to view the presentation as merely styling is a crude understanding of the precept.
Separation acknowledges that there isn’t a “one finest means” to current content material. What’s finest is contextual to the scenario and provisional till a more moderen presentation proves more practical. The identical underlying content material could be offered in a number of methods, which may shift how it’s perceived, understood, or consumed. The purpose of separating content material and presentation is to permit a number of displays of the identical content material, a few of which can be higher and clearer than others.
Separation permits the content material to learn from iterative design enhancements. Presentation requirements evolve to replicate learnings about what works most successfully. Separation permits UI parts which are used throughout many content material gadgets, corresponding to heroes or alerts, to be examined and improved.
Sure, Virginia, content material remains to be significant with out presentation
Separation requires a shift in mindset and follow. Folks could push again by proclaiming that it will probably’t be completed – that the notion is nonsensical, that it threatens the magic content material can supply.
A standard objection contends that content material can’t be stripped of its presentation and stay intelligible. This view holds that presentation is integral to the which means of content material, so it will probably’t be separated from the content material. In any case, if presentation helps the which means of content material, then content material with out presentation should be meaningless, proper?
To deal with categorical objections like this, it’s essential to unpack beliefs about how experiences change into significant. Doing so helps to clear the cobwebs of unexamined assumptions and spotlight the modifications occurring in digital practices.
The which means of content material is unbiased of its presentation. Whereas the presentation is vital in conveying which means within the broadest sense (by stressing emphasis or salience), it doesn’t observe that content material relies upon on a selected presentation.
Content material could also be more durable to grasp with out its presentation, however not often is it contingent on its presentation to convey its which means as a result of that means the presentation materially modifications the which means of the content material, which ought to by no means be the case. The presentation can change with out altering the which means of the content material.
The precept of independence has some radical implications:
- Authors should let go of preconceptions of how their content material will seem, both now or later. The content material’s look is topic to alter.
- The content material is unbiased of the media it might seem in as nicely.
But as a result of content material can exist in lots of kinds (media), it’s generally tough to tell apart what’s content material from what’s presentation.
Merely put, the content material represents the substance or essence of what’s offered. That essence needs to be outlined exactly and never be topic to variable interpretation. The substance doesn’t rely on its context: It’s going to stay the identical wherever it’s offered.
Content material’s which means is persistent, nonetheless or wherever it’s offered. The literal which means of content material is fastened by its encoding. Its presentation could affect its connotation however not its literal which means.
Communication–the flexibility of various folks to breed the identical message–relies on distilling the essence of a message – its content material– from how it’s offered.
All through historical past, folks have encoded the which means of content material through the use of standardized notations. These requirements permit individuals who have no idea each other to interpret the content material in a constant means.
The substance of content material is usually outlined as textual content, symbols, or structured knowledge of some kind that may be composed or compiled into varied displays. As laptop expertise continues to advance, it’s changing into simpler to interrupt down content material displays into constituent parts and separate the content material from its presentation.
Writing began through the use of symbols to face for issues or ideas. Then, writing developed symbols for the sounds of phrases – utilizing letters, phonetic alphabets, and even shorthand symbols.
Later, folks developed notation to signify music and even dance. The symbols don’t must be visible. Braille can signify letters or sounds.
As symbols change into formalized, they change into unbiased of a selected presentation. At first, writing was handwritten, then engraved, and later typeset; with every step, the content material turned much less tied to its authentic presentation.
Textual content is a surprisingly versatile technique to signify content material that may be reworked into displays in every kind of media. Even the richest content material media – the film – is constructed from a textual content script. AI has proven the probabilities of producing audio and video from textual content.
The development has developed to separate content material from its presentation. All types of content material could be extracted and separated from their displays, whereas displays in lots of codecs could be constructed from “uncooked” content material. For instance, an audio recording could be changed into a textual content transcript, and that textual content can be utilized to generate one other audio presentation that includes a unique voice or perhaps a totally different language.
Maps have been traditionally thought-about content material that was inseparable from its presentation. What worth is a map exterior of its presentation? However maps at this time are databases of structured content material that may be offered in a number of methods. The identical data could be offered as a avenue map or a satellite tv for pc picture or depend on textual content labels or icons, for instance. Maps are manifested by way of their presentation however should not outlined by any particular presentation.
Skeptics could object that sure sorts of content material all the time rely on their presentation. If a presentation can solely be offered in a method, then it’s content material. Presentation, by definition, implies that there’s a couple of technique to current one thing. The presentation just isn’t fastened.
Photographs as media could be content material or displays, relying on their essence. The unique supply file of a photograph picture is content material, however subsequent cropping, edits and coverings of the picture are displays of the unique content material. The development in picture manipulation is towards non-destructive modifying.
Even visible content material could be represented non-visually. Many content material creators consider that visible content material has a set presentation and thus can’t be separated from the content material it represents. That assumption is being challenged in an increasing number of domains.
Think about diagrams. Whereas diagrams are supposed to be visible, they don’t have to be represented visually. There are a number of approaches to representing diagrams as textual content, which may generate various visible renderings of the diagram. Neither the format of diagrams nor its presentation are fastened.
What about music? Since music depends on commonplace symbols positioned on a employees, it will appear to have a set presentation. However whereas sheet music is the most well-liked illustration of a music rating, it isn’t the one possibility. Music scores can be represented as textual content utilizing the ABC notation, which may generate a visible rating. Digital music compositions can be represented utilizing the MIDI protocol, which could be manipulated to generate various displays of the composition.
Arithmetic is one other sort of content material that’s usually offered visually however doesn’t not must be represented with a set presentation. Although arithmetic makes use of broadly understood symbols, their presentation could be variable. Sure mathematical statements could be offered in a couple of means. Arithmetic has developed two parallel markups: one for the content material and one for its presentation.
The presentation ought to add which means, not change which means. Presentation provides context to content material, which may improve its which means. The presentation helps outline the intent for a way readers will expertise the content material.
The identical content material ought to all the time imply the identical factor, nonetheless it’s offered. The one scenario the place a presentation will alter the intrinsic which means is that if it reinterprets the content material’s authentic intent by altering the collection of particulars — the method of context shifting. This may increasingly occur unintentionally when the content material is poorly developed. For instance, it might be doable {that a} much less detailed view of the content material offers a unique impression than the views with full particulars. Or it might happen when the content material can assist eventualities past what was initially envisioned, which shifts how the content material is known. As a result of these conditions are doable with decoupling, it’s crucial to develop content material that isn’t wedded to preconceptions of how it will likely be offered, since future displays can’t be identified prematurely.
One cause machines (whether or not assistive expertise or AI bots) misread content material is that the content material is ambiguous, counting on contextual cues to clarify what it’s meant to say. The W3C has warned of the reliance on visible construction to convey the which means of content material: “Whereas presentational options visually suggest construction — customers can decide headings, paragraphs, lists, and so on. from the formatting conventions used — these options don’t encode the construction unambiguously sufficient for assistive expertise to work together with the web page successfully.”
Presentation can’t repair ambiguity in content material. In case your content material relies on the way it’s offered to be understood appropriately, then the content material itself is probably going ambiguous and inherently complicated. The function of presentation is to attach concepts which are intelligible on their very own, to not make unintelligible concepts in some way discernible by way of hand-waving.
Some manufacturers, sadly, publish fragments of content material whose which means is unintelligible with out seeing the context wherein it seems. These practices have change into extra prevalent lately, because the fetish of minimalism has been rationalized as selling simplicity and value, even when it usually leads to the other impact. Readers are anticipated to guess the which means of a touch or icon based mostly on different content material offered elsewhere. These hidden meanings, whereas seemingly elegant, fail to tell the display screen reader consumer or move authorized compliance critiques for readability and the absence of potential misinterpretation. The ubiquity of dangerous practices doesn’t legitimize them. Fairly, they exhibit the necessity for content material to be express and clear unbiased of its presentation.
Treating communication as a “content material design” bundle has resulted in quite a few examples of misleading design practices the place important data is suppressed. These examples are deceptive exactly as a result of the content material, by itself, doesn’t absolutely or candidly convey the data customers have to know to make an knowledgeable choice.
Illusions of management
How ought to choices be made about how content material seems? A person’s latitude to make choices concerning the presentation of content material just isn’t synonymous with the group’s capability to make these decisions.
Some authors protest after they don’t have choices to alter the styling or format of their content material. They soar to the conclusion that the presentation can’t be modified and consider that their enter is critical to resolve how the content material seems to be. In essence, they assume in the event that they don’t see an possibility to alter the presentation, that possibility doesn’t exist.
Although authors should not answerable for the presentation, that doesn’t suggest that the presentation is fastened. Organizations can change the presentation every time they need to. Organizations usually purpose to have varied content material they publish offered in a constant method as a result of such constantly promotes readability and understanding. They don’t need to encourage the helter-skelter redesigns of particular person internet pages.
The presentation can change independently of the content material. The presentation just isn’t fastened and might change readily when the group decides to take action.
But, such modifications should not the byproduct of content material modifications. They’re separate choices. What meaning is:
- Altering the content material doesn’t alter its presentation or format. For instance, an extended title gained’t essentially shrink in font measurement to suit a set area.
- Altering the content material and altering the presentation should not concurrent actions as a result of separate methods handle them. If you wish to regulate each the content material and the presentation, you’ll want to pivot between separate modes.
The second level raises a query: May the identical particular person change each the content material and its presentation? In precept, sure. However in follow, the 2 sides are meant to be ruled individually. Every has guidelines for what’s allowed and modifications should conform to those guidelines. For instance, the content material can’t use nonstandard phrases or punctuation. Equally, the presentation can’t incorporate nonstandard colours or fonts.
The presentation is set by guidelines that apply to a number of pages, not by particular person decisions for particular pages. Some people deride guidelines for constricting their expression or stopping them from configuring their internet pages as they’d like. However guidelines aren’t stifling. They really simplify processes and broaden the scope of doable modifications by enabling international modifications. By having guidelines, organizations can change the content material in all places on an internet site with out worrying that it’ll break the design and power fixes to the presentation. They will additionally change the presentation globally with out worrying about needing to regulate present content material.
Singleton pages exhibit the necessity for separation. Many objections to separation give attention to singleton pages, that are one-off pages which have distinctive content material and require a particular format as a result of the character of the content material is not like content material elsewhere. An instance can be a webpage presenting a timeline. Whereas single pages appear to signify a good correspondence between the content material and its presentation, the presentation and content material stay unbiased of one another.
The error some folks make is to confuse design situations with design variations. Even when solely a single web page has a novel format (one design occasion), that doesn’t suggest the presentation is fastened (that there can solely be one model of that occasion.) Another presentation might be developed and used.
As a result of the group may resolve to alter the design of a novel webpage later, it’s necessary that the content material ought to lead the design, not observe it.
Content material can also be topic to alter, and displays should be ready to “flex” to regulate to content material modifications. The unique creator usually gained’t management the content material over its lifespan. Authors swap jobs, which means another person would possibly revise the content material later.
With on-line content material, there’s no single creator. All on-line content material seems alongside different on-line content material that has been created by different people at totally different occasions.
It’s essential to tell apart the content material context (what different content material is adjoining) from the context of its presentation (format, formatting, and different presentational decisions).
This will get into content material meeting: How content material is layered into bigger experiences.
Content material meeting just isn’t presentation
Content material meeting is more and more necessary as organizations transfer away from presentation-defined content material creation. Presentation-driven templated content material historically decided the content material’s meeting. As practices transfer away from utilizing templates to outline the content material, the function of meeting is changing into extra vital, although it stays poorly understood. Builders usually confuse content material meeting and content material presentation, particularly if they’ve spent careers working with template-based CMSs.
As a result of templates beforehand dealt with meeting, some folks mistakenly think about content material meeting as a part of content material presentation. However meeting is distinct from presentation. The context of the content material (the associated content material that seems collectively) is conceptually distinct from the presentation context (how these content material gadgets are offered.)
The format is detached, whereas the meeting is opinionated. The format is generic and agnostic about what content material seems in a slot. Content material meeting, against this, is particular about which content material gadgets are conceptually linked.
Meeting determines which content material items will seem collectively – although not how they’ll seem.
When meeting is subsumed by content material presentation choices, the development of the content material is fragile and brittle.
Like Humpty Dumpty, after taking a fall, poorly assembled content material can’t be reassembled. It’s breakable and is unusable.
Fragile content material that may’t be reassembled sometimes has been outlined by its design.
If content material is assembled appropriately, there needs to be no “breaking modifications.”
Not all content material meeting occurs the identical means. The most important barrier is how varied folks take into consideration content material meeting. They don’t make a distinction between two sorts of meeting:
- Intrinsic meeting, the place models should be supplied collectively to make sense and, subsequently, needs to be preassembled throughout content material growth
- Extrinsic meeting, the place variable combos might be probably provided, is finest outlined exterior of the content material growth course of.
Each the objectives and course of for intrinsic and extrinsic meeting are totally different.
Intrinsic meeting connects content material that’s intrinsically associated in which means: The items collectively type the bigger message. The content material is preassembled by way of two means:
- Linking (or referencing) gadgets
- Ordering gadgets (in lists or as arrays of things)
Intrinsic relationships are predefined: A goes with B, or A all the time precedes B. The items utilized in intrinsic meeting are usually damaged aside to assist content material reuse or upkeep reasonably than assist variability wherein items are mixed. Embedding gadgets (photos, for instance) inside one other content material merchandise is one other sort of intrinsic meeting, albeit much less predefined than linking, because the choice of whether or not to embed is non-compulsory.
Extrinsic meeting is used when the communication is extra contextual and situationally dependent. It usually attracts on content material variations which were developed to deal with extremely particular conditions the place the best mixture can’t be preassembled simply as a result of they contain too many eventualities.
Extrinsic meeting depends on predefining evaluative guidelines or creating directions that aren’t fastened. These guidelines outline which items and choose what attributes they need to have beneath particular situations. This sort of programmatic meeting is commonly based mostly on contextual guidelines regarding processes.
Generally guidelines could be written right into a schema corresponding to JSON Schema when they’re persistent as if—then—else statements. In any other case, the principles are written into code when matching particular variables and values. The foundations or directions might be written in GraphQL, Javascript, or another programming language.
Authors have management over the meeting. As soon as organizations embrace true separation of content material from its presentation by guaranteeing that presentation isn’t defining the meeting of content material, authors can regain management of necessary choices.
With intrinsic meeting, authors can join content material items inside their editor. Ideally, the content material mannequin behind the scenes has already outlined relationships between varied content material varieties, so the creator doesn’t want to determine which varieties belong collectively. As a substitute, they’ll give attention to associating associated content material gadgets. If gadgets should seem in a selected order to make sense to customers, they’ll point out that.
Extrinsic meeting occurs exterior the editor within the API layer. As a result of extrinsic meeting directions depend on code, builders have, till just lately, been those accountable for defining extrinsic meeting. However prior to now few years, a brand new class of content material orchestration instruments has emerged that permits authors and different enterprise customers to outline guidelines for meeting content material with no need to depend on a developer.
Content material meeting offers energy to authors to resolve which content material items to ship to audiences.
By organising content material meeting appropriately and disentangling it from presentation, organizations take away frequent “it will probably’t be completed” objections.
Poor implementations are a barrier, not an excuse for FUD
Separating content material from its presentation has triggered resistance for a few years. Change administration case research educate that folks have issue altering habits and adopting new practices. It’s a lot simpler to stay with the acquainted, even when it isn’t fascinating in the long run.
But the crucial of implementing such a separation solely retains rising. Planning and managing internet pages whose content material and designs are tangled collectively is solely not sustainable. And shifts in expertise, from composable methods to AI, require that content material be unencumbered by its formatting and presentation. Format can’t sign what content material means if for no different cause than machines gained’t see it.
Given the longstanding resistance to separation, one could marvel how the idea will ever acquire the traction essential to change into the default follow in organizations.
The excellent news is that separation is a sound idea that gives a number of advantages. Concern, uncertainty, and doubt could conspire to cloud these advantages, however they don’t negate them. Separating content material from presentation is crucial to constructing and bettering upon prior content material and design work.
The most important barrier to the common adoption of content-presentation separation is poor implementation. Dangerous instruments, weak necessities, and immature data all contribute to poor implementations, which appear to validate the expectation that separation can’t be completed.
But poor implementations, whereas frequent, are hardly inevitable. Many organizations are shifting up the maturity ladder. They acknowledge that the stakes are too necessary to disregard important transformation in UX practices. They may depart behind organizations that commingle their content material and presentation. The worry will shift to being left behind.
–Michael Andrews
