Field notes // content craft

ContentMine

Build pages people finish.

Hard lessons on building web content that holds up.

Read the postsWhat this is

From the mine

12 seams
  1. Hardcode your footer links in the templateFooter links change once a year, if that. Stop treating them like editable content.
  2. Publish status labels need unambiguous verbsDraft, pending, and scheduled sound like they mean something—until three people interpret them three different ways.
  3. Your homepage intro paragraph is probably backwardsMost homepages bury the essential information in sentence three. Start with what people came to find out.
  4. Button text should match the action you're confirmingWhen your confirmation dialog asks "Delete this page?" and the button says "OK," users hesitate. Match the verb to close the gap.
  5. Run a content audit before you change your CMSMigrating platforms without knowing what you have means migrating problems. Audit first, then decide what moves.
  6. Conditional field display breaks your content modelHiding fields based on other field values creates phantom dependencies that break bulk editing, API calls, and future migrations.
  7. Field labels need a verb when the field isn't obviousA noun alone works for "Email" or "Phone." Everything else requires instruction.
  8. Stop apologizing in your confirmation messagesUsers who just completed an action don't need reassurance that you're sorry for the interruption. They need confirmation of what happened.
  9. Tag taxonomies fail when you can't explain the differenceIf two tags overlap enough that you pause before choosing, you don't have a taxonomy—you have a list of synonyms slowing down your workflow.
  10. Error messages need specific recovery instructionsGeneric error copy forces users to guess what went wrong and how to fix it. Your error message should tell them exactly what to do next.
  11. Menu labels belong in user vocabulary, not yoursNavigation reflects how your team talks about content, not how users think about finding it. Fix that before you publish.
  12. Alt text describes the image, not the metaphorWriting alt text isn't about explaining what your image represents — it's about describing what's actually visible in the frame.