In defense of CMS Users

There's nothing wrong as far as I can see.
We make it harder than it has to be,
and I can't tell you why. - Eagles, "I Can't Tell You Why"

Over the last couple of weeks, a couple of writers whom I have a great deal of respect for, Seth Gottlieb and Jeff Cram, have written blog posts suggesting that end users can't handle Web Content Management Systems (CMSs) because they are too difficult or too technical. These folks have gone so far as to suggest that CMS designers should probably ignore the non-technical end user. As much as I like Seth and Jeff's work, this week I'm here to support the non-technical CMS users of the world. I'm here to remind everyone that users aren't stupid and these systems aren't that hard. They're really not.

I've used a lot of CMS tools as an end user, and you don't need to be a computer expert to use one. If you've used a word processor, you can use the average CMS. Most systems I've seen have been designed with the everyman in mind, and more often than not, people who write the content want to control the publishing of it. And that just makes sense. The whole idea is to take this out of the realm of IT and put it in the hands of the people who are creating the content.

Do you really want to wait for IT to publish your updates? 

A few years ago I wrote a case study about a company based in Florida. Every time they needed to update the company web site, they had to send a request to the IT team in Hong Kong. This was retail; prices changed, products changed and it was nuts to wait several days for an IT team half way around the world to get the changes, then find the time to post them to the website. And if there was a small mistake (and there often is), the process would have to start again. How is that sensible or efficient? It's not.

What makes more sense is to let the people who write the stuff, publish it. This is not rocket science. These systems should absolutely be aimed at the people who use them, not some geek in IT who understands back-end administration, but knows squat about the front-end business.

Let's give 'em a little credit, shall we?

If users can write the content in Word, they can take it a step further and publish it to the company website by clicking the Publish button. The CMS I use to publish this newsletter lets me import Word documents if I was inclined to write my documents there. I'm not, but many business users are, so that works, right? You import the Word document, add some links, run a spell check, click the Submit button and you're done. How difficult is that?

I understand that exposing some users to the entire system could be problematic, but there are lots of features in Word most of us never use, and it it doesn't mean we can't write some copy, such as a memo or a manual. You just ignore what you don't need. In my experience with non-technical end users, they know what they need to know and they don't really care about the rest.

It's time we stopped thinking that those people who are technical can use these systems, while less technical users aren't capable enough to deal with them. I wouldn't want to set one of these systems up from scratch. But once it's in place, I think I can handle it, thanks. I'm not stupid and neither are most business users.

Users will figure it out, work will get done and we will all be happy. It's certainly preferable to waiting for some guy in IT (or even marketing) to update the website for you. - Ron