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Four Questions Guide Web Content Management Plans
These days, costumers have many options to go online. There are computers, smartphones and tablets but also TVs, eReaders and even gaming consoles. That’s why today it’s very important for the content and collaboration (C&C) professionals to consider new strategies for their web content management (WCM).
The mobile demand is explosively growing and the American company Forrester forecasts that by 2015 in the USA alone there will be 159 million smartphones and 82 million tablets in use. It is therefore necessary to develop the mobile content which will require not only time, effort and money but also new skills, processes and in some cases even new technology will be necessary.
The mobile demand is explosively growing and the American company Forrester forecasts that by 2015 in the USA alone there will be 159 million smartphones and 82 million tablets in use. It is therefore necessary to develop the mobile content which will require not only time, effort and money but also new skills, processes and in some cases even new technology will be necessary.
Furthermore a Forrster’s survey showed that the online customer experiences are no longer limited to traditional websites. Today there are 60% of online US adults who engage in the mobile channel. For the organizations it has become important to support all these channels but there are also difficulties because to satisfice the customer’s expectations you have to create tailored presentations for multiple mobile devices.
To make these processes a lot of easier for the organizations and to not waste too many time the Four Questions Guide was developed to manage the web mobile content.
To make these processes a lot of easier for the organizations and to not waste too many time the Four Questions Guide was developed to manage the web mobile content.
First of all you have to consider whether to use mobile web, mobile apps or both. A Forrester’s survey showed that 61% of US online adults who download app on their smartphones are more likely to access to mobile internet at least daily. So for the C&C professionals these means instead of thinking about going mobile with a website or an app they should consider to deliver content to both and they should rethink what functionalities works best in apps versus mobile web. According to a survey apps are better for rich user interfaces and/or discrete functionality like for example checking your bank account or flight status. The mobile web however is more used for general information.
The second question is to consider whether to use device-specific or device-agnostic.
The use of device-agnostic means that there a fewer templates to manage and it’s easier to maintain presentation and brand consistency. But the disadvantages are that there is an increased chance mediocre experience and the use of device-agnostic doesn’t allow taking advantage of device-specific characteristics. Because the advantage of device-specific is a better customer experience. In contrast to device-agnostic, device-specific has the ability to take advantage of device-specific characteristics. But therefore there are more templates to manage and it’s harder to maintain presentation and brand consistency.
The use of device-agnostic means that there a fewer templates to manage and it’s easier to maintain presentation and brand consistency. But the disadvantages are that there is an increased chance mediocre experience and the use of device-agnostic doesn’t allow taking advantage of device-specific characteristics. Because the advantage of device-specific is a better customer experience. In contrast to device-agnostic, device-specific has the ability to take advantage of device-specific characteristics. But therefore there are more templates to manage and it’s harder to maintain presentation and brand consistency.
The third point of the Four Questions Guide is how to structure presentation templates.
A power and business user friendly approach is better when presentations have a great number of variations. This is given with WCM vendors like for example Adobe or SDL who allows creating global content and presentation elements in order to manage families of presentation templates that support traditional web, smartphones, tablets and other devices. But if there are fewer variations between presentations and developers maintain those variations, it’s better to use fewer presentation templates and manage device-specific requirements.
A power and business user friendly approach is better when presentations have a great number of variations. This is given with WCM vendors like for example Adobe or SDL who allows creating global content and presentation elements in order to manage families of presentation templates that support traditional web, smartphones, tablets and other devices. But if there are fewer variations between presentations and developers maintain those variations, it’s better to use fewer presentation templates and manage device-specific requirements.
And last but not least the fourth and last point of the Four Question Guide is weather to use the technology that the existent web content management vendors provide or go with a mobile specific development and delivery platform.
Already today WCM vendors allow to manage traditional web and mobile experiences within the same the content management and development environment. But not every single portions of a company’s website may be delivered via one same WCM, that’s why WCM-based mobile functionality may only work for a portion of a website.
Already today WCM vendors allow to manage traditional web and mobile experiences within the same the content management and development environment. But not every single portions of a company’s website may be delivered via one same WCM, that’s why WCM-based mobile functionality may only work for a portion of a website.
In summary the C&C professionals have to start thinking about multichannel content management rather than WCM. They need to design channel-agnostics content processes and architectures. Also the C&C professionals should optimize content for less real estate and bandwidth rather than more.
