Templates vs. Design

Now that we've fleshed out the various customer segments and types of experiences we want to provide on line, the next step in our "Percussion.com 2.0" project has been the graphic design.  I thought this would be a relatively uneventful step. The "creative folks" in marketing would go off somewhere to work out what they wanted our various new sites and pages to look like, and then give the implementation team the "mock ups" of HTML, CSS, and other elements that would then be decomposed into the templates and other WCM design objects needed in the new system.  But as a participant in both the  implementation and creative teams (I'm not good enough at either to focus on either exclusively) this has become a very interesting exercise in the idea of just how much content and format can or should be separated.

Now, before you fall off your office chair, I'm happy to personally confirm that the fundamental premise of WCM is in fact sound - that content CAN successfully be separated from format. The interesting part was in the realization of how little the creative types in the "graphic design" team actually care about the "graphic design" of a site - at least what any WCM implementer would consider the graphic design of a site.  Turns out, the creative types in graphic design pretty much only care about what the final site actually looks like.  (Go figure!)

To understand the difference, take a look at any of the most important pages visually on any site - the "home page" or other entry pages. Try Microsoft.com for example, or one of my personal favorites www.patriots.com.  How much of what you see on those "first impression" pages is actually design, and how much is content?  Most of what you are looking at is in fact a combination of large graphic images, flash elements, or other rich media.  None of that is actually part of "the design" of that site.  All are in fact elements of content placed into that site design.  Change them and the page looks very different.  The actual graphic design is maybe half a dozen styles defined in a simple CSS file, and perhaps a small fragment of HTML for the page footer. The "template" for such a page is basically a giant open white box with a bit of a graphic design wrapping around it that specifies only minimalist details.

The typical implementer out there may be thinking "great, I can do a big open box - EASY" but that skips the point.  The problem often is, until the image or the flash, or the other rich media elements are actually done, it's very hard for the graphic team to specify even those boring edge details like how the footer HTML should wrap.  And of course, this problem occurs on the most important pages of the site.  (And good luck getting the graphic team to focus on some low level press release page as their latest greatest expression of their talent and your corporate brand.)

None of this need be a problem.  For one, CSS and related Web technologies make it very easy to change look and feel without redoing any templates.  And of course, with a WCM, the templates themselves can be redone easily and recombined into any number of different look and feel experiences - not to mention addition of new images, flash, and other rich media elements sitting on the pages.  Good templates can easily use variables or other conditionals to manage the "stretchability" of the design in lieu of the actual rich content elements being final.

What is important here is understanding that the WCM system is fundamentally about empowerment, NOT enforcement.  

The worst fate for any WCM system is when it degenerates into nothing more than a brand enforcement tool for content - purely making sure bulk content updates go onto the site in accordance with your brand.  A vibrant useful WCM system must embrace the changeability of the site look and feel.  It must empower the brand folks and creative team to manage and change the different experiences they want the site to deliver to visitors.  For these creative WCM users, it's perfectly ok, in fact, absolutely necessary to blur the line between what is "format" and what is "content."   A good WCM implementation will have many levels of pre-defined vs. open-ended formatting for different types of WCM users: a "big open white canvas" for the creative team to work their magic in the places you care about most, and a locked down "your text goes here" area for the pure content folks.  

And for people like me, who only think we are creative, the WCM can give us something in between - "paint by numbers" maybe?