Designing a CMS around content, not pages
Helping BT rethink a fragmented headless CMS around reusable content, editors’ needs and closer collaboration between Content Design and Engineering
The challenge
BT Business had a content design practice of more than 40 people, but fragmented content systems and inconsistent ways of working made it difficult to deliver quality at scale.
We were moving to a headless CMS, but its existing content architecture was holding it back. More than 900 separately-created (but evolving!) content types meant information assets were difficult to manage and maintain, and near-impossible to reuse. It also made life unnecessarily tricky for our editors and engineers.
The challenge wasn't simply to reduce the number of content types. We had to rethink how product content was structured, so it could scale with the business.
My role
As Principal Content Designer, I shifted the focus from creating content for individual pages to designing reusable structures, relationships and patterns across BT's product catalogue.
I treated our content editors as the primary users of the system; bringing their needs into the design process alongside those of engineers and product stakeholders. Through a series of workshops, I challenged existing assumptions, helped to establish shared principles for our content reuse, and aligned teams on a unified product content model and how it would be implemented.
Outcome
… A single product content model to be home to all of BT’s product families and products, with a foundation for content reuse across the board.
Just as importantly, my work meant a shared understanding of content architecture across disciplines, with clearer standards for building, managing and governing BT Business’s content.
From complex and disconnected…
Cross-functional alignment workshops to map editors’ needs, content and business priorities.
“ Irene was tasked with building a content model for our new headless CMS. We had limited experience of this within the business, but Irene spent time to make sure she understood what users needed and built a robust model that we could abstract to work across our site and other channels.
It wasn't easy, but Irene stuck with it tenaciously and professionally and owned the model 100%. She made sure it was not just about the model from a technical perspective but also about its implementation and how it will be used in the future. Great work. ”
~ Dougal Mather, Product Owner
… to a structured, reusable model
A simplified content model designed around user needs, enabling reuse across channels.
Role: Principal Content Designer · When: 2024 - 25 · Focus: Content modelling · headless CMS · systems thinking · cross-functional alignment