# Modular content strategy for Doctors Without Borders

 

 

Date: Friday, December 13, 2019

 By  [CivicActions](/civicactions)

### Making life easier for website content authors with a component-driven approach in Drupal

Cognitive map used to inform content strategy for Doctors Without Borders.

Content strategists and site builders alike will recognize the predictable problem of “CMS bloat” — like a Drupal website with three times the number of content types it needs, or a dozen taxonomy vocabularies that rarely get used.

At Seattle DrupalCon 2019, CivicActions’ [Kev Walsh](https://civicactions.com/team/kevin-walsh) and [Iris Ibekwe](https://civicactions.com/team/iris-ibekwe) shared from their experience [redesigning the website](https://civicactions.com/case-study/msf) for Doctors Without Borders by creating elegant and flexible content models with smaller chunks of structured content.

Learn how a modular, component-driven approach can provide a better content authoring experience and a much less repetitive approach to site building, theming, and site maintenance.

[Watch Iris and Kev’s talk at DrupalCon Seattle, 2019](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4taFPvSkHBA)

> “The sky is the limit and the client is having fun.” — Iris

**Highlights**

- 0:38 — How Doctors Without Borders uses their website to provide global aid
- 2:28 — Why we chose a component-driven approach for the Drupal 8 redesign
- 5:17 — How and why we created a lean, mean content model (watch out for scope creep!)
- 10:47 — Heads up, you’re going to get the content model wrong the first time (so stay lean, and build in feedback loops)
- 12:56 — Get your initial content model in front of users ASAP, and ask them to break it (fail fast!)
- 15:30 — Create diagrams of the content model to help product owners and stakeholders understand what you’ve designed
- 17:05 — How VX and UX can work together with developers to shape the site build
- 17:50 — How the component-driven model unleashes new site building freedoms
- 20:23 — See how one component can be reused in multiple ways
- 23:40 — How the component-driven approach opened new possibilities for the client
- 25:35 — Agile + component-driven content model = so happy together!

**Resources**

- Deck: [Component-Driven Content Strategy for doctoswithoutborders.org](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Wq7Sk_xapFUOpWWEP5vCLKpSPma63AC_Z4RzCePi2Es/edit#slide=id.g55b4d15d00_0_10)
- [Case Study: Doctors Without Borders](https://civicactions.com/case-study/msf)
- [Cognitive model ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ATMFeI_i3gWgMc9WgYSV4Rq9rPdrbbcT/view?usp=sharing)of the new content structure
- [Atomic Design Methodology](http://atomicdesign.bradfrost.com/chapter-2/)
- [Pattern Lab + Drupal](https://drupal-pattern-lab.github.io/)

**Connect with Iris!**

- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/irisibekwe/)
- [GitHub](https://github.com/iris-i)
- [Drupal.org](https://www.drupal.org/u/irisibk)

**Connect with Kev!**

- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinjosephwalsh/)
- [GitHub](https://github.com/kevwalsh)
- [Drupal.org](https://www.drupal.org/u/kevinwalsh)