One of the biggest hurdles after implementing a CMS in organizations, is preparing for the rollout and user adoption by self-publishers who have little or no HTML or coding skills. To increase internal user adoption by non-coders, your goal should be easy, intuitive self-publishing. The easiest ways to do this is to strip down the admin interface to the bare essentials, after that, create a really terrific and engaging user tutorial. Doing both will reduce the never-to-be-underestimated "intimidation factor" of learning new software and processes.
Of course there are other needed requirements to adopting a new CMS like creation of a user support site, coaching, email support and of course a great CMS to begin with, but the two essentials for adopting and using a new CMS internally are:
- a user-friendly, intuitive CMS admin interface
- a user-friendly, engaging, step-by-step CMS user tutorial
Thursday, June 17, 2010
What's the right CMS for your organization?
That depends on a number of factors like:
What Business Are You In?
If you're a large and dynamic multimedia company with content-rich productions being streamed on the web, then your CMS will need back the backbone and flexibility to deliver media rich productions in a variety of formats.
If you're a large information rich company that produces a variety of research and data, then your CMS will need to have the flexibility for top-notch metadata and easily create user-friendly URLs to optimize your content for search engines (SEO) for users to easily find your specific information searching in Google or other search engines.
How Deep are Your Pockets?
A simple CMS such as Wordpress costs next to nothing and offers Web2.0 functionality like easy updates, instant publishing, and plug-ins to a variety of formats to extend site functionality.
Open Source CMS like Drupal and Joomla are free of charge for the software, but the services component to develop and add modules has to be factored in. It gets more expensive depending on the complexity of the requirement. Free is not free unless used "out of the box" - and most sites and users want some form of customization. The good news is they can be deployed quickly reducing total cost of ownership, they are scalable, and a variety of modules can be added to extend functionality to meet any requirement.
Enterprise class CMS's such as Interwoven Teamsite, Sharepoint, Oracle are very expensive due to the cost of licensing software and cost of services, integration and configuration. Some can take years to deploy properly. And some still require HTML coders after all that.
Then there are the mid-range CMS offerings like Sitecore and HotBanana. Software is licensed and needs an integrator to deliver but they can be very viable solutions depending on your business needs.
Check out:
What Business Are You In?
If you're a large and dynamic multimedia company with content-rich productions being streamed on the web, then your CMS will need back the backbone and flexibility to deliver media rich productions in a variety of formats.
If you're a large information rich company that produces a variety of research and data, then your CMS will need to have the flexibility for top-notch metadata and easily create user-friendly URLs to optimize your content for search engines (SEO) for users to easily find your specific information searching in Google or other search engines.
How Deep are Your Pockets?
A simple CMS such as Wordpress costs next to nothing and offers Web2.0 functionality like easy updates, instant publishing, and plug-ins to a variety of formats to extend site functionality.
Open Source CMS like Drupal and Joomla are free of charge for the software, but the services component to develop and add modules has to be factored in. It gets more expensive depending on the complexity of the requirement. Free is not free unless used "out of the box" - and most sites and users want some form of customization. The good news is they can be deployed quickly reducing total cost of ownership, they are scalable, and a variety of modules can be added to extend functionality to meet any requirement.
Enterprise class CMS's such as Interwoven Teamsite, Sharepoint, Oracle are very expensive due to the cost of licensing software and cost of services, integration and configuration. Some can take years to deploy properly. And some still require HTML coders after all that.
Then there are the mid-range CMS offerings like Sitecore and HotBanana. Software is licensed and needs an integrator to deliver but they can be very viable solutions depending on your business needs.
Check out:
- CMSWatch for a list of vendors and CMS classes.
- My other posts on CMS best practices.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
User-centric, Task-focused websites
Here is an example of a brand new CLF2.0 government website that I lead the design and development on - designed for the user with a task-focus: http://www.buyandsell.gc.ca
User Feedback on Task-Focused Websites
Thought I would post some feedback to validate how much user's appreciate it when their needs are reflected on new and redeveloped websites that are developed from a task-focused user's perspective:
"I can already tell that this site was built with the user experience in mind and not the usual "government-eese".
"Such a website is long overdue and much appreciated from a buyer/user-perspective. This will no doubt save time and energy in having to search through various pages/sites and contribute to more efficiencies."
Check out this example of a user-centric, task-focused website: http://www.buyandsell.gc.ca
"I can already tell that this site was built with the user experience in mind and not the usual "government-eese".
"Such a website is long overdue and much appreciated from a buyer/user-perspective. This will no doubt save time and energy in having to search through various pages/sites and contribute to more efficiencies."
Check out this example of a user-centric, task-focused website: http://www.buyandsell.gc.ca
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