Better Content Models

Nested content models are a pain to edit. When you’ve let your CMS schema mirror your design system, you end up with content types named after UI parts—MediaInColumns, MultipleArticleCategoryView, RelatedTemplates. Those aren’t concepts—they’re design constraints smuggled into the CMS.

This is especially true in Contentful. If you’re using Sanity or Payload, you have more flexibility to flatten your schema without fighting the UI. But in Contentful’s interface, nested references create sprawl that compounds with every level. Editing a carousel item inside a section inside a page means clicking through nested modals just to change a text field.

The problem is you’re asking the content model to do two jobs at once—structured content and page builder. When you combine those concerns, complexity wins. Editors get lost in nested references, validation fails cascade through pages they didn’t touch, and they start working around the system instead of using it.

The fix is straightforward—model content for what editors actually need to edit, not for how designers want to build pages.

A hero needs a title, subtitle, maybe a CTA, and an image. That’s five fields. Open it, understand it in two seconds, edit it, done. Instead of nesting everything together, flatten it out.

Reference Hell:

Hero (Entry)
  └─ Hero (reference)
      ├─ Title
      ├─ Subtitle
      │   └─ CTA (reference)
      │       ├─ Text
      │       └─ Link
      └─ Image (reference)
          └─ Asset

Order and sanity:

Hero (Entry)
├─ Hero Title
├─ Hero Subtitle
├─ Hero Image (Asset)
├─ Hero Link
└─ Hero Link Text

The page template—not the content model—decides placement, variant, responsive rules, everything. Templates can change without breaking content. Content models should describe the thing itself, nothing more.

Keep models flat and obvious. Let templates own presentation. Override at the page level when you need to, but keep those tweaks out of the shared schema. Strip away what isn’t doing work.

The hard part isn’t the principle—it’s the discipline to stick with it. Every nested reference “just this once” makes the next person’s life harder. The reward is editors who move fast, fewer broken pages, and content that actually survives change.