Understanding Content Architecture: Definition and Importance

This guest post was written by Media Shojaee, a Content Strategist, Content Architect, MadCap Advanced Developer, and an experienced Technical Writer with a demonstrated history of working in the computer software industry. He is skilled in Madcap Flare, CSS, Technical Documentation, HTML, and Software Documentation.

What is Content Architecture?

Wondering how to improve content development? Content architecture is one of the steps how to create one. It is the process of designing a structure that can utilize content effectively, efficiently, and create outputs that satisfy the stated or implied user needs of the target audience. There are so many factors that can affect the content architecture. In this article, I will review some of these factors, and suggest a model which can pave the way for content architects. It is important to note that the process of improving content architecture can be different from business to business. 

Some organizations may use a one-time waterfall process while others might use an agile approach. To make it simple, content architecture should provide the best solutions for the missions and strategies of an organization. Contents go through various stages of development. Following is a content model to categorize these stages.

While the mission of content determines why content should be published and available at all, the content strategy determines how to accomplish missions. The bridge between content strategies and content management is the content architecture which identifies how specifically content should be created, designed, and published to achieve the goals of content marketing strategies.

In content architecture, the role of a content architect is critical to make the functional decisions which facilitate the operational activities for effective content management. Content architecture provides a road map for content developers who want to have a clear workflow from production to publishing, also known as end-to-end production. Content architecture is where you should think big, but you can start with small steps.

Why is it Important?

A content architect should see the big picture as much as possible. If the content mission of an organization is modified, and strategy are revised accordingly, the architecture should be flexible enough to correspond with the changes in a way that minimizes the response time of providing the right content type for the audience.

Another reason that underlines the importance of good content architecture is that the demand for structured and meaningful content is on the rise. Companies want to provide just-in-time content that is well-organized, and the target audience needs the information which is faster to find and easier to understand. 

If users cannot find the right information quickly and easily, they skip the content for other potentially more costly resources, ignore the service, or ask for a redesign of the content. At the end of the day, the company should bear the cost of quality for reworking the content. A good content architecture helps readers answer their own questions without contacting various departments of a company.

What Happens Without Content Architecture?

Without content architecture, it is a laborious task to develop content and escape the following consequences:

• The final content might not satisfy the users, which can impose the cost of quality if redesigning the architecture is necessary. This happens when companies jump to content management without designing the architecture.
• Unmanageable content is growing in size, scope, and complexity, and the big mess of data needs to be structured and organized separately for each output.
• The content developers do not have a clear and specific plan to follow. It can feel like a mess too big to take it on¹. The user won't enjoy meaningful content content experience, and the content may not look as attractive as it should be.
• Content is a strategic business asset. If the right information does not find the right person in the right way, the business is not successful to deliver the required service that the audience or the user needs.

Internal and External Benefits of Content Architecture

Content architecture brightens the mind and shows the path to content developers to design the workflow of operations in the content management stage. Consistency of content increases by predefined layouts, structure, etc. which is necessary, especially when a number of authors work in a group. A specified architecture brings less variability which speeds up decision-making processes for different types of content.

Excellent content architecture can bring more user engagement, increase customer satisfaction, and decrease the number of emails and contacts to an organization.

A content architect, technical writer, or project manager must successfully address the following critical decisions to reduce the cost of quality and response time, make the architecture flexible enough to support future changes, and maximize the internal and external benefits for an organization.

Critical Decisions of Content Architecture

The following checklist of critical decisions specifies almost all the important criteria that a content architect must consider before starting a project. However, a content architect may think deeper about or even ignore a decision from the checklist based on the size of the project.

The desired quality of outputs specifies how much time should be dedicated on each structured content item. Structuring great content takes time and requires investment in the content design process and purchasing necessary technologies. 

Sometimes there is not a clear cut to put a critical decision into a specific stage, and a decision or question may be reviewed in other stages as well to align with content strategies and content management stages.

Footnotes and references:
1. From The beauty of content architecture.