What is: Content?

‘Content’ is web designer-developer speak for the text, images, sound, video, etc., that a website contains, and that can be viewed using a web browser.

Depending on the web browser a person is using, ‘content’ may be perceived to also include non-web media formats such as Word documents and PDFs. For example plug-ins for Internet Explorer can automatically open Word documents and PDFs within the web browser window.

Content page
A content or destination page is a webpage that enables a person to complete a task.

For example, a content page might provide the product information they are looking for, tell them the time the next bus leaves, or enable them to download a file.

In addition to content pages, websites typically have pages that can be used to find content pages. These navigation pages provide an overview and a way of linking to content pages, often grouping links by subject, topic or theme.

Web content accessibility
One advantage of computer-based communication is the potential for content to be repurposed and reused in different ways.

For example, a person with visual impairment can use computer-based tools to transform web content to suit their needs. If webpage text is too small to read comfortably, the text size can be increased; if they are partially-sighted they can use screen reader software to read the content of a page aloud.

The ability to repurpose or reuse content is affected by content type (format). HTML-text is the most flexible content format and is easily repurposed by assistive technologies.

Non HTML-text media types such as images (GIF, JPEG, PNG, etc) and video/animation (such as Flash) are less easy to transform.

This issue of transform-ability (or accessibility) also has an impact on search engine ranking, which relies heavily on HTML-text to determine page relevance.