Headless CMS: Where’s the Brain When the Head is Missing?
Content management systems are classic tools for publishing digital content — but they are reaching their limits: The digital landscape is becoming more and more heterogeneous (apps, tablets, Alexa, augmented reality, whatever comes next), and the demands on cross-channel content increase. New solutions are therefore flexible, innovative and… headless?
If you work with content on the Internet, you are probably familiar with content management systems (CMS) — it’s a fairly standard tool. During my work at Eyekon, however, I noticed that people kept mentioning ‘headless’ CMS. I got curious. Is headless a good thing or a bad thing? Where did the head go? That’s why I interviewed our technical director, Jonas — and he not only answered all of my questions, but also revealed his somewhat controversial view of the topic (cliffhanger!).
Sydney: So Jonas, first of all: What is a headless CMS? Why “headless”?
Jonas: A headless CMS is basically just the backend — it manages only data, i.e. “pure” content, without layout and design, and outputs it using a standardized format. In a classic CMS, the content is managed together with the presentation and display aspects, and formatted and output all by the same system. As a rule, no consideration is given to the end device.
Suppose you are programming a company telephone book. So you record all data about a person and output a table with entries for name, address, and telephone number. Nicely formatted with a “zebra pattern” so that the lines are easy to read. This works great for a website, but what if you have an Apple Watch? It won’t really be able to do anything with that table on the watch display. A headless CMS, on the other hand, only delivers data without a preset display. If you say to a smart watch: “Call Samuel”, only a phone number needs to be evaluated, delivered, and called.
A headless CMS only delivers data, without layout and design.
An important point is that a headless CMS is ideal for comprehensive use across all channels — the modular content can be delivered to an app, to a device with voice support such as a smart watch, or to a browser. As a result, you don’t have to copy and paste content multiple times in order to display it differently on various systems — which is often the case with classic CMS. So it’s a huge advantage of a headless CMS, but…
That sounds like an advanced system… But?
To some extent the system just delivers content, but has no idea what to do next. So … a headless CMS is a bit dumb, if I may put it that way.
I won’t hold it against you. But what do you mean by that exactly?
*A thoughtful pause* Okay, so maybe it’s not dumb, but on its own it’s not as useful as everyone says it is. It’s just the beginning of a good solution. I’ll try a metaphor: Imagine the headless CMS as a gas station: The gas station’s job is simply to deliver fuel, regardless of the vehicle. But there are different types of vehicles that can perform very different tasks. Sports cars, station wagons, buses, etc. They all use the same fuel. What is done with it, however, depends on the capabilities of the vehicle. A sports can has completely different tasks and functions that a bus.
What I’m getting at is that the ‘headless’ trend ignores the fact that the head (or in the previous example, the car), brings unique benefits with its individual properties. Of course, nothing works without fuel or data, but the value is mostly generated elsewhere!
For a headless CMS to be a great solution, it has to be expanded. The hype should revolve around ‘smart’ heads in connection with a headless CMS.
I see. But even a classic CMS can’t meet all these requirements. So what is the solution?
For a headless CMS to be a great solution, it has to be expanded. The hype should revolve around ‘smart’ heads in connection with a headless CMS. I mentioned earlier that the body is important, but it’s the head that says what world we are in — it has a brain, willpower, ideas.
So you make the system headless and then still put a head on it?
Essentially yes. You really have to have a whole system. We want to create customized solutions to address specific problems. A headless CMS is not enough to achieve this. Because a CMS without a head is just a zombie. And who wants their web presence to be managed by a zombie?!
Can you explain a bit more?
Let’s take a company website: It represents all aspects of the company and should bring together business, product, user data and editorial content in as integrated a way as possible. Without an integrated approach, websites quickly degenerate into confusing constructs: A www.business.com with the CMS, a separate store at store.business.com, a blog at blog.business.com and so on. All side by side, but not properly interconnected, leading to a terrible user experience!
So what we want to have is different headless systems as components — a headless system for content, a headless system for product data, detached processes for the store, etc. — united and integrated by a “mastermind” that brings everything together and controls everything. What exactly this mastermind, or Smart Head, looks like and what has to be considered during the conception would go beyond the scope of this interview. But I’m sure we’ll soon find time to talk about it again.
(To be continued.)
This interview was conducted by Sydney Luca-Lion with Jonas Fahrni.
Would you like to know how headless CMS are used in practice? Take a look at our project documentation for EAO and Compona.
