With the (virtually) limitless power of custom meta and post types we can transform the sleek and user-friendly blogging tool that is WordPress into a custom CMS comparable to enterprise level publishing and eCommerce platforms. Getting your installations or projects to that level takes more than organized code; it takes planning, information design and architecture.

I have found that partnering with a designer in the preliminary stages of project requirement discovery, user experience and information architecture, to be a real asset to our team’s workflow and process. Creating early infographic documentation of site maps, navigation, and post types – meta, relationships, and logic – during the discovery phase leads to faster client approval and sign-off as well as catching issues, conflicts and misunderstandings early in the process. Benefits can also be seen with theme development as coding can begin earlier with a clear set of objects/properties/relationship well before a UI/UX design is ready. Designers also benefit from having a list of necessary elements that must be accounted for in the design.

In my session, I want to show examples of this workflow – from the design of information architecture, to the creation of the custom content scaffolding. Examples to be shown include projects from local businesses and non-profits such at The Foodery, ‘Hearing Modernity’ at the Harvard School of Music and Boston Magazine’s The Shoes We Wore Project.