Recently I came across an article on CMS Usability by Sydney based CMS guru James Robertson. In his article, “11 usability principles of CMS products” he outlines the key principles a CMS should have to be truly usable.
A usable CMS will:
- minimise the number of options
- be robust and error-proof
- provide task-based interfaces
- hide implementation details
- meet core usability guidelines
- match authors’ mental models
- support both frequent and infrequent users
- provide efficient user interfaces
- provide help and instructions
- minimise training required
- support self-sufficiency
While reading through his article I found myself nodding in agreement and more surprisingly thinking that we’ve come pretty close in meeting these principles with our own CMS. While we didn’t start out with these exact principles in mind prior to development, it’s clear our own frustrations dealing with a combination of usability and technical issues across a number of CMS platforms led us to develop a CMS that is closely aligned with these same principles. In many respects it’s a little scary how close we’ve come.
Now, as the owner of a CMS, it’s easy to start believing your own sales hype and get carried away. However, our own research and more importantly, feedback from users support many of these principles.
I hope to meet James from Step Two Designs soon and get his feedback on our CMS to see if he agrees. I’ll report on his findings here in the near future.