Content Management Systems of the Future

Trend 1: Online First

Traditionally, “thinking in documents” still prevails in many writing technical departments. A manual, neatly printed out page by page, self-contained and independent of other manuals – that is still the ideal image of documentation in many places.

Modern technical writing departments, however, have recognized that they must turn this ideal concept on its head (or rather, put it on the right footing) in order to be fully prepared for the challenges of the coming years. In the future, the paper manual will become a by-product of the digital manual. The concept for documentation will become online information, the mobile manual, and embedded instructions on the machine display. This requires a different approach. And it requires content management systems that support the changes that are occurring in these basic concepts of documentation.

Trend 2: User-Driven Design

The CMS of the future must be considered from the user's point of view, or in other words, it must map the mental models of the user. If the CMS works in the way the technical writers expect it to, then their work becomes easy. This also means that users only have to make a few important decisions during the authoring process. The CMS then automatically derives all other actions from these decisions.

In light of this, we are currently working on Smart Focus Tracks, which allow users to concentrate on the task at hand and avoid distractions from other functionalities. The tasks are run through step by step, meaning that individual details cannot be forgotten. The user also doesn’t have to keep track of all the little details during the entire process chain. Such task-oriented process chains make it is easier to train new employees – a major advantage in the tight labor markets of the future, which are characterized by a shortage of skilled workers.

Trend 3: Functionality Instead of Complexity

A content management system can be pretty complex nowadays, as the wide variety of tasks in a technical writing department leads to a large number of requirements regarding functionality. When this complexity is presented to users all at once, many are overwhelmed. Steep learning curves, detailed operating procedures, and functionalities that are hard to find make it unnecessarily difficult for the technical writers to work with the CMS.

Of course, there is no way back: limiting functionalities will not help here. The requirement for the future is to control complexity so that users only see the information that they need in the current work situation. A small example: If a technical writer creates a new publication, they will be shown the list of all possible publication formats in the CMS. In a CMS that reduces complexity, they would only be shown the formats that have already been used in the CMS. Small changes like these can already make a major difference to workloads. In the future, it will be important to manage CMS development in such a way that only the functionality that is currently required is shown.

From documents to online-first documentation, from feature-driven to user-driven design, and fundamentally reduced complexity. Just like our world, component content management systems are evolving, and we are excited to see what's to come.  Because performance does not have to be complex.