Choosing the Right Content Management System

a presentation given at the Highland Fling Conference, July 2011

Transcript

1. CHOOSING THE RIGHT CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
2. RACHEL ANDREW @rachelandrew http://rachelandrew.co.uk http://edgeofmyseat.com http://grabaperch.com
3. WHAT IS A CMS? (for the purposes of this presentation)
4. A TOOL FOR CONTENT EDITING By non-technical users Via some kind of web-based admin
5. YOUR CMS IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR SOLUTION
6. ONE-SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL.
7. WHAT DOES THIS PROJECT NEED?
8. HOSTING
9. LANGUAGE PHP, .NET, Ruby, Python ...
10. OTHER TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS Working with existing software, user logins
11. WHO WILL EDIT THIS?
12. HOW MANY EDITORS? and do they need protecting from each other
13. SKILLS Not just technical skills
14. PREFERENCES What do they love? What do they hate? Find and fix the pain points.
15. THE PROJECT SPEC What requirements does this site have?
16. SIMPLE PAGE-BASED An obvious hierarchical site map
17. BLOG-CENTRIC Where a blog or blogs are the main feature
18. COMPLEX CONTENT STORAGE REQUIREMENT A huge amount of content - not necessarily page- based
19. CMS SECONDARY TO MAIN APPLICATION Used for editing bits of content in an app.
20. OTHER FEATURES Galleries, news updates, e-commerce, calendars ... what else?
21. VISITOR NUMBERS How busy do we expect this site to be?
22. WHAT EDITING ENVIRONMENT DO YOU WANT TO PROVIDE?
23. WHAT BEST SERVES YOUR DESIGN AND YOUR EDITORS?
24. YOUR CLIENT IS (PROBABLY) NOT A COPYWRITER
25. YOUR CMS SHOULD SUPPORT THE CONTENT STRATEGY
26. YOUR CLIENT IS (PROBABLY) NOT A DESIGNER
27. YOUR CMS SHOULD MAINTAIN THE DESIGN & TYPOGRAPHY
28. DEFAULT TO THE SIMPLEST THING POSSIBLE
29. USERS SHOULD NOT NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE DATABASE
30. THE SOLUTION TO ONE PROBLEM IS NOT THE SOLUTION TO ALL.
31. THE CURSE OF WYSIWYG
32. YOUR CLIENT IS (PROBABLY) NOT A DESIGNER
33. ckeditor
34. Emoticons anyone?
35. Comic Sans please
36. BUT CLIENTS NEED TO BE ABLE TO STYLE THEIR CONTENT!
37. DO THEY, REALLY?
38. WYSIWYG EDITORS FOCUS ON HOW CONTENT LOOKS.
39. WYSIWYG IS A FLAWED PREMISE
40. WYSIWYG CREATES NON-REUSABLE DATA
41. This looks like contact information
42. But is it really?
43. WYSIWYG MIXES CONTENT AND PRESENTATION
44. WYSIWYG PROMOTES STYLE OVER CONTENT
45. SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
46. STRUCTURED CONTENT
47. Contact information?
48. Add a contact
49. The Contact on a web page
50. Contact mark-up
51. SUPPORT THE CONTENT STRATEGY WITH STRUCTURED CONTENT
52. MAINTAIN THE DESIGN - EDITORS ENTER CONTENT - NOT MARKUP
53. STRUCTURED CONTENT removes the need for editors to think about how it looks.
54. STRUCTURED CONTENT can promote the content strategy and offer help and advice in the form for novice copywriters
55. STRUCTURED CONTENT allows you to store data in a way that describes what it is - so it can be easily reused
56. STRUCTURED CONTENT prevents a mess of html ending up in your database, making it easier to re-present that content elsewhere
57. SIMPLE FORMATTING
58. MARKITUP http://markitup.jaysalvat.com/home/
59. WYSIWYM What You See Is What You MEAN
60. PREVIEW
61. VIEW CHANGES IN CONTEXT
62. “IN-CONTEXT” EDITING
63. ONLY WORKS FOR VERY SIMPLE SITES
64. PROMOTES THINKING ABOUT STYLE RATHER THAN CONTENT
65. REQUIRES JAVASCRIPT AND MAY CONFLICT WITH SITE JAVASCRIPT
66. USE WITH CAUTION http://allinthehead.com/retro/357/the-lure-of- on-page-editing
67. BE UNASHAMED TO BE THE EXPERT
68. BUT, WHAT IS THE RIGHT CMS FOR MY PROJECT?
69. A CMS THAT DOES NOT FORCE YOU TO COMPROMISE
70. A CMS THAT ENABLES EDITORS TO CONTINUE YOUR WORK.
71. A CMS THAT PROMOTES EFFECTIVE USE OF CONTENT.
72. A CMS THAT PREVENTS ACCIDENTAL DESTRUCTION.
73. A CMS THAT DOES THINGS IN THE SIMPLEST WAY POSSIBLE.
74. DEMAND MORE FROM YOUR CMS MAKERS
75. NEVER SETTLE FOR ‘GOOD ENOUGH’
76. HIGHLIGHT GOOD PRACTICE ...and file bugs and complain about outdated, crufty systems
77. THANK YOU @rachelandrew Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ongline/3131142818/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ongline/3131143218/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ongline/3131143024/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ongline/3131142976/