CMS Simple enough for Granny

[eljefe3]

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System: The following 2 messages were cut out of thread at: http://www.webmasterworld.com/content_management/4017471.htm [webmasterworld.com] by ergophobe - 9:06 am on Nov. 18, 2009 (PT -8)

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Anyone have a suggestion as to the easiest CMS that a non-techie like my grandmother could use. I've looked at a few different systems and some comparison charts, but haven't come across any real first hand usage comparisons from those that have used multiple platforms.

[ergophobe]

We've covered the other end of the spectrum: Best CMS for a 6-year-old [webmasterworld.com]

Still, the challenge might be harder than you think. Did you see the recent Google video where they asked people on the street what a browser is? Less than half the people knew (most answered "Google" when asked what browser they use).

A close friend, my mentor, and some other other non-techy people I know do not know the difference between the operating system and the browser. Over the phone I have to ask them what it looks like because as far as they're concerned, they're always in "Windows".

So you need to make it as simple as possible. Strip down the admin interface if possible, create a desktop shortcut that takes them straight to the admin page.

[ergophobe]

Specifics...

Wordpress is about the easiest, but I've been surprised how hard it is for people who are not web-savvy to use. If they're on forums and Facebook and all that, it can help.

There are some that use a somewhat different model (I think if Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, all the PHPNuke successors as having the same fundamental UI concept in terms of how you add a page).

Some exceptions would be ModX and Concrete5.

For Drupal 7, there's a big push for usability and they've started doing usability audits as part of each release. This was motivated by usability tests that showed that most users were utterly flummoxed by Drupal 6. I don't think it's just a Drupal problem.

[freelancer]

How much functionality does she need ? Wordpress is the easiest I can think of .

There are some browser-based programs like Flypage that allow non-techies to update content on web sites without changing the styling.

[claus]

It's really a lot more complicated to use these systems than we think. We experienced users tend to have learned a tremendous amount of stuff, and we're just used to apply that knowledge sort of automatically without even thinking about it.

For one thing logging in to a CMS like WordPress you first have to discover where to write stuff. That by itself isn't obvious. Then there's this weird distinction between concepts like "posts" and "pages"... totally nonsense to a non-trained user. And I could go on.

If, and when, an untrained user finally makes it to the "write" field there are a whole new set of problems waiting as people often want more than just text: How to make text bold, bigger, smaller, indent text, insert pictures, links, etc. Even with plugins like TinyMCE this isn't obvious at all. OTOH, a lot of options makes for a lot of confusion. The saying "Keep it simple" has always been neglected by the CMS developers (after all they need to develop something...)

I would say: Roll your own. Make it as basic as two input fields:

(a) Name of page
(b) Text to go on page.

And then one button: Publish page. Make no attemt to include formatting of text, wysiwyg-editors, or the like.

[ergophobe]

It's really a lot more complicated to use these systems than we think.

I was just talking to my brother who was saying he would gladly pay someone $250/month to just maintain his Wordpress site. He doesn't want to run a web site, he wants to run his business and the web is of only the smallest significance to his business (more work than he can handle via word of mouth, but would still like a site to send people to).

I should say, he was a crack programmer years ago, written up for his programming in a national engineering magazine when he was still in college. He has built complex enterprise software, he spends a lot of time on the computer. It's not like he's not capable of learning Wordpress (or ultimately build something similar from scratch given enough time).

He also said Wordpress was dead easy once I showed him his way around. But when he went back three months later to change something, he had forgotten where everything was, it was just more hassle than it was worth and the site just sort of died.

I've also set up WP for some people who are not technical or interested and that was just useless. They couldn't get anywhere with it. Most people don't want to spend any time running their site. They hire someone to do their accounting. They hire someone to design their Yellow Pages ad. They hire someone to handle their legal issues. They do not want to learn their profession, plus law, accounting, print design and web design.

Meanwhile, I built a site that is pretty much what Claus described with a few other things
- string substitution for various offices (officer name and email)
- a campsite reservation system, waiting list notifications and newsletter upload
- member management for treasurer
- password reminder (key feature)

Every input form is as simple as possible (but no simpler). And the people who use this site have been using it for seven years. After a few bug reports in the first month, there have been something like two support requests in seven years.

[freelancer]

I gave this a bit more thought and right now I am sizing up SilverStripe and I have to say that this little CMS is pretty easy system to use. Would say its much easier than any other CMS I have used.

It does'nt have a lot of the bells and whistles that some/many CMSs have , but it has most of the basics.

I would definitly think that this would be something I would steer a non-techie toward.

[ergophobe]

Hey freelancer - welcome to WebmasterWorld! Looking forward to your contributions.

You finally motivated me to write up my comments on Silverstripe [webmasterworld.com].

It would be great to have your input there as well!

[claus]

If I was to mention one CMS system it would be sNews. But even though this is the simplest system I've tried it still needs customization in order to make it grandma-friendly.

So, you need to edit the code and turn off some bells and whistles. However, the great thing about sNews is that it's built as a "CMS-template", sort of... it has only the basic functions (but well implemented) and then it's up to you, the developer, to customize it so that it becomes the CMS that you want. Which, again, is simple as there isn't a lot of cryptic files, includes, and stuff to confuse you. It's basically all in one single php file, and out-of-the-box it's a blog.

(I have no affiliation with sNews, I should add)

Anyway, given that it needs to be an extremely simple interface -- with customization time and all it's probably still just as easy/quick to roll your own. Especially if you know how to use a framework like CakePHP or similar.