Components break when the content model underneath is rigid. This featured session reveals how content strategy decisions made months before Drupal implementation—field structure, required versus optional, granularity, relationships—directly determine whether your component system enables speed or becomes a bottleneck.
Drawing on platforms serving 50+ Iowa state agencies, 80+ Georgia government websites, and Georgia Public Broadcasting's multi-brand system, you'll see the complete content modeling process: from workshops with authors using paper prototypes, through data dictionary work (cardinality, character limits, display variations), to embedding simplified specs into Figma files so designers can stress-test with real content constraints. You'll discover common pitfalls that hurt component flexibility and learn field structures that enable the same components to serve wildly different organizational needs—without custom code for every use case.
The session concludes with an audience-driven demo: suggest an agency and page type, and we'll build it together in real time—proving the model's flexibility on the spot.
This session is for content strategists, developers, site builders, and UX designers working with component-based systems at scale; anyone tired of hearing "but we're different" from their stakeholders is welcome.
You'll leave knowing:
- Where to put guardrails versus where to allow flexibility
- How to validate content models before AND during building
- Field-level decisions that make or break component reusability
Structure doesn't restrict flexibility—it enables flexibility at scale. But you need to know where the guardrails belong, because components are only as flexible as the content model underneath them.
