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I'm just entering the world of CMS design, after having tried many. I tried them for myself, and for client websites. Then I started looking into making my own,
by NHQ 16y ago
I'm just entering the world of CMS design, after having tried many. I tried them for myself, and for client websites. Then I started looking into making my own, to solve my own problems. However, based on my experience, I would say there is no CMS that is good n easy for the non-techie. The fact is, you have to become somewhat techie in order to proceed on any of them, unless you just want to blog.
Custom CMSs are the way to go (not customizable, like drupal: custom made). This is, for me, the biggest advantage of document databases. I'm new to software design, and self taught, but not a coder. I've never tangled with a relational database yet. It's incredibly easy to design case-specific CMSs with document databases.
It all boils down to form design.
- lovskogen 16y agoSad fact, but I'm starting to believe there is none.
- NHQ 16y agoIf the CMS has a special Admin page, then it is not a CMS for the non-techie. Administration can be no more than filling out forms, uploading images, etc, etc. No plugins, no DBs, no hosting, no nuthin'.
- lovskogen 16y agoI agree.
- andybak 16y agoI'm not sure I understand the point being argued here.
- lshepstone 16y agoI don't agree. I can show you some form based screens where a non-technical user can create some content and publish it fair easier and quicker than using an in-context editing approach. I raised the point in comments above, but there is a big different between creating a new page from scratch and using a simple form to create a templated page. WordPress (or any blogging tool) doesn't make you build your blog post as a page draggin modules onto it...they give you a special admin page where you just fill in the title and body text and click publish...what could be simpler? In-context editing does work great for many use cases, but it doesn't work well for some. Think about when you need to create a slightly interactive web page...not just a simple static one. You'd like one section of the page to fade in/out when the user hovers over an image for instance...I haven't seen anyone pull off an in-context UI that makes that easy but I've seen some great form based UI's that make that 30 secs work for a non-technical user. Check out the Carrington Build WordPress plugin (no affiliation) for a decent example of providing users with a very simple admin page builder drag and drop layout tool. I do wholeheartedly agree that very few CMS tools have an awesome UI for business users...maybe you can change that.