Smashing Magazine are carrying a post about how to choose the perfect CMS. There’s some pretty useful stuff in there and I’d recommend checking it out but I’d also add these couple of points.
Allow for Power-users
In the sales pitch for almost every CMS I’ve ever seen they talk about how it’s so easy to use the company MD/CEO can update the website. Be careful of this claim, how many companies have you seen where the MD has the time or inclination to update the website? All but the smallest one and two man operations will delegate this task out to someone else in the company. In medium to large companies the job can be given to a dedicated person.
Content Management Systems that are too focussed on ease of use often make these fatal mistakes:
- Easy to use, but long winded.
Ease of use is not necessarily efficiency of use. Experienced users will look for shortcuts and quick ways to perform tasks. Make sure such features exist if people are going to have to live with the CMS every day. - Lack of flexibility
Some systems are so locked down that the users ability to achieve anything but the most basic tasks is completely hobbled. Allow people who know their stuff to use their judgement in managing content, don’t just lock them into a rigid set of rules. Or every meeting where a suggestion of posting something to the website is met with a sharp intake of breath and a shake of the head.
Don’t get locked into a propietary system
Building a website based on a CMS usually means that your company has grown to such a level that it feels the website needs to be managed in a more efficient way, and you have taken the decision to invest considerable money into your online presence.
That usually means contracting a web design firm to build it for you, and all the pitfalls that entails. With the best will in the world relationships between clients and contractors often fail. From simple personality conflicts all the way down to downright incompetence the relationship can deteriorate to such a condition that neither party wants to work together any more.
With that in mind, the last thing you want is to be in a situation where you have no choice but to work with the people you fell out with. So I would always recommend choosing a system that is supported by a large number of potential contractors. Such a system would most likely be open source, but if you’re not a fan of the OSS model, there are plenty of proprietary systems out there with multiple licenced developers.
Tags: Content Management
Posted March 6, 2009 by admin under Web development
July 12th, 2009 at 8:53 am
one more nice topic in your blog and nice comments too keep it up, If you advise some more related links to topic. I’m very interested in CMS and all its related subjects.