Discussion: Do we want to want to offer page building on most content types?

[willguv]

This long standing question came up again at LGD Camp

Some councils have added page building with paragraphs to most content types (@LizziCBFC have you?)

This allows initial page content to be entered in the body field, followed by further content such as contacts, documents and text in page built fields

Such an approach takes us away from the simplicity of pages. One council has reported it's lead to harder to maintain content

Let's have a discussion about this and agree a way forward

[LizziCBFC]

Yes @willguv - we have it on pretty much all our main content types with the exception of news articles, form start pages, events, testimonials, and landing pages.

It does require more governance to make sure we only use the elements when appropriate, but provides a lot more flexibility with the content building process.

[finnlewis]

This has come up at Greenwich recently too, looking ahead to whether we want to add components and paragraphs (layout / images etc) to service landing pages / sub landing pages / pages.

The original structure of the service content types was driven b yresearch from Clearleft at Brighton, and GCD guidelines.

The outcome was service content types (landing / sublanding / page) with just text, no layout, no images, the idea being that most users find the information quicker if they are not distracted by calls to action, images and varying layouts. (I imagine this also requires a decent information architecture.)

But all that research and GDS guidance was a long time ago.

Can we co-ordinate and generate some updated user research or other evidence to help steer our 'best practice' guidance and what we advise as a community?

How would we go about it?

What are the questions we'd want to answer?

Does having layout options help users find content on service landing pages?
Does having layout options help users consume content on a service page?
Does having images on service pages help users consume content?