Many content professionals were first introduced to the practice of content modeling by Rachel Lovinger's 2012 A List Apart article on the subject.

Content modeling gives teams of authors, managers, designers, and programmers a shared understanding of a content ecosystem. Before they write a single sentence or line of code, teams align on a common language that keeps their work in sync.

Content modeling accounts for everything from the authoring experience to metadata strategy to the end-user experience. It helps team visualize the content landscapes they are creating, and it serves as a conversation starter for any number of important stakeholder interactions.

https://ellessmedia.com/csi/rachel-lovinger/