5 things to look for in CMS interfacesAlastair Campbell (@alastc)Bathcamp 06/06/2012

User Interface concepts in CMSs

Me & CMSs

• Co-founder of Nomensa, HCI background

• Our first CMS project was in 2002 (Obtree)

• Accessibility drove us to creating a CMS in 2004 (Defacto 1)

• Looked around for something new in 2008

• Created Defacto 2.0, using Django (but not the admin)

• I work on the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines at W3C (sporadically)

User Interface concepts in CMSsCMS Interface Concepts

Won’t somebody think of the authors?

• Interface model

• Administration model

• What to look for & understand

Page model (Focused)

Wordpress

Immediacy

As Drew McLellan said...

beware the pimped out blog sitedon’t launch a new site with a weblog

cms already stretched to its limits

beware the pimped out blog sitedon’t launch a new site with a weblog

cms already stretched to its limits

Functional model

Technology focused UI

Where to add a page?

Traditional / Enterprise

Everything’s an object

Frameworks

Django (Admin)

The law of CMS interface quality

Is there a technical user?

Defacto

Functional /Traditional

Non

Defacto 2 - Things we wanted

• Target the interface at authors, the development environment at developers

• Task driven interface

• Two steps to publish (create, review, and hit publish)

• Minimise the conceptual distance from CMS interface to website

5 things to look for

• Who is responsible for what?

• Is the CMS’s model appropriate for your site?

• How easy is it for authors to accomplish basic tasks?

• How does it bridge between the UI and the website?

• Check the training documentation - flaws stand out

Thank you!

http://www.nomensa.com@alastc http://alastairc.achttps://plus.google.com/101029316087123794349/about

Picture Credits

• Cottage, by John Pickenhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/picken/2531404152/

• Pre-fab house, by seier+seier+seierhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/seier/3678135417/

• Mansion 2, by Paraflyerhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/paraflyer/1494921862/

• Lego bricks, by 713 Avenuehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/seven13avenue/2080281038/