1. A CMS shouldn’t have tons of extra features.

   You don’t want to use a e-commerce platform for a portfolio site, so why would you use it for a client that just wants to display their products, but not sell them? Carefully plan out the features that you will need to implement and try to find a system that has what you need and not too much exta (unless you know that you will be adding an e-commerce solution in the near future).

2. A CMS should be well documented and have support.

   You wouldn’t drive a car without an owner’s manual and your web development should be no different. You don’t want to use a CMS that either has no online community or  support. Instead you want to chose one with a vibrant community of developers or one that is enterprise level and comes with some technical support.

3. A CMS should do what needs to be done well.

   WordPress is great, fantastic and pretty much awesome. But it doesn’t do everything well. There are some types of sites that stretch and push it to its limits. While you can use it as a CMS, it frequently requires the addition of plugins (such as Pods or Flutter). If you need an e-commerce site, and that is the main purpose, you should be considering e-commerce solutions and evaluating them on the ability to add features – does it play nice with your WordPress blog? Can you add a blog or file uploader? Start with the main purpose and work outward.

4. The end user needs to be able to use the CMS you choose

   If your back-end is too complicated for someone who is not all that sophisticated when it comes to technology, your client, or end user is going to end up just as unhappy as he/she was with a static site that required entering into the code. Making sure that the interface is intuitive for a non-technical user with minimal training is a must. (When in doubt, call your mom or grandma – or other non-techy type -  and see if they can figure it out)

5. You should not have to expend a significant amount of additional development time on your design.

   It always takes extra time to develop for a CMS over a static site, however, chosing one system over another should not increase your development time. If there are too many hurdles that you have to jump through to make your site look nice or behave, then you need to move on and look at additional resources.

What are the best options out there? Well, there are many to choose from, some more popular than others. Each of these systems has its own unique strengths and weaknesses.

Content Management

WordPress (with Pods or Flutter)

WordPress makes an excellent CMS – with the addition of one of the two plugins listed. It is simple to use and fairly intuitive. I wouldn’t use it for a site with more than about 20 pages.

Drupal

An open-source solution with an active developer community, this CMS is great if you need a bit more flexibility than WordPress allows. It has modules that allow it to be exended into just about any type of site (including blogs & e-commerce)

SilverStripe

This is my latest obsession. Object oriented PHP and a custom PHP framework that was designed with the CMS for maximum flexibility. It uses a custom template extension, but for the most part, if you can handle PHP, HTML and CSS, this content management system is a breeze to work with. I am actively campaigning for people who use WordPress for everything to give this one a try, it might actually save you some development time. Oh, and the book is available at Amazon (SilverStripe: The Complete Guide to CMS Development (Wiley)). The book sold out the first day it was available, and has since been restocked. I reccomend at least trying this one out. You will love it. There is a ton of control for SEO on a page by page basis without any additional work.

Concrete5

Is another open-source project that relies on OOP and MVC (acronyms galore!) It offers in-place editing and many available extensions (although, they will charge you for some of them). There is a lot of flexibility in this system, and although I am not well versed in it, it looks to be an interesting option that I am going to have to use when I get the chance.

E-commerce

Magento

There really is nothing that compares with Magento. There is an open source version that is free to use as well as an enterprise level solution that comes with technical support and will set you back a nice chunk of change. Magento was born as an open-source project, so the core product is available for download. It is a robust and well-documented solution.

Lemon Stand

Currently in beta, this e-commerce app is designed to make managing e-commerce a breeze. You can even edit the code (HTML, CSS) from within the app itself. Looks promising.

Zen Cart

Is a popular choice amongst developers and is supported in a 1-click installation on many web hosts. It is meant to be easy to install even for beginners and boasts a large community of users for support.

For developers
The Adobe® AIR™ runtime lets developers use proven web technologies to build rich Internet applications that run outside the browser on multiple operating systems.

For Businesses
Adobe AIR offers an exciting new way to engage customers with innovative, branded applications, without requiring changes to existing technology, people, or processes.

AIR for everyone
From shopping on eBay to managing music, Adobe AIR means applications that are easier, more powerful, and more fun to use.

Cross platform applications? I’m in. Especially because I am one of those designer types who works on a PC (please, don’t shun me!)

Ok, here are the goods:

Shrink O Matic is a batch image resizer that is helpful for resizing images for the web.

Those of us on PCs don’t have the luxury of using FontBook, so this handy little app comes in quite hand when trying to pick just the right font.

How many times have you been trying to figure out how much space is available when putting the CSS together for a site? Maybe I just hate math more than most people, but I need to see the distance not just calculate it with a calculator.

WebKut is a handly little screen shot utility (trust me, it is better than the print scrn button on your computer)

If you use the Blueprint Grid system, this is a must have (if you just want to wireframe on a grid this is a handy tool as well).

A great way to store all those snippets of code that you want to reuse as opposed to having to search through old projects to find them.

This is a handy tool for designers who are concerned about meeting W3c standards on readability.

If you need to track time, and don’t want to have to log into a website, or do it manually, this little app is a beautiful alternative. (I know beautiful doesn’t describe functionality, but as a designer a good looking environment is important to me).

This is a tool for creating mind maps – these help me create sitemaps and process flow charts (*this application is not completely free, although some functions are)

Some additional resources for useful Air™ apps:

http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/27-adobe-air-applications-handy-for-web-designers/
http://refreshingapps.com
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/marketplace/index.cfm?event=marketplace.home&marketplaceid=1

(Header image credit: Chris Lae)

Why not? Because at a certain point the amount of extra plugins and customizations outweighs the ease of use.  For the trade show display company, I am going to use SilverStripe because of its similar ease of use.  That particular CMS has a simple to administer back-end that was designed for the type of site I am building.

When is WordPress the answer?

• When you are building a site whose main function is to be a blog (like this one).
• When you are building a site who has a manageable number of pages.
• When you are adding e-commerce functionality to a small site (whether it is WordPress or just static)

When should you consider other options?

• When you are building a complex site where page relationships are less straight forward.
• When the main purpose of your site is to sell retail items.
• When you need to have modules repeat on different pages.
• When you need some of the functionality that you can build into WordPress be native.

I would say 80% of our projects use WordPress over at Purple Crayon Web Studio, but it doesn’t work for everything.  The moral of the story? Look at all the options before you make the decision to avoid getting halfway through a project and realize just how much customization it is going to take.

(image credit Marjan Krebelj)

There is a lot of buzz around the web about pending legislation for making 508 compliance mandatory for all US-based websites. We have to say that we are happy about that. What this means is that sites will be forced to be accessible to screen readers and other assistive devices. (My mom is a special education teacher, so making sites accessible is quite important to me.)

This goes beyond W3C compliance, although that is a good place to start. What exactly do you need? Alt tags and longdesc for images and elements that have no readable text. A text file alternative for imbedded flash. A good meta description and client side image maps. Row and column headers in your tables. Javascript should not change the meaning of the text presented in the HTML.

All of these are good practices, but it is time to start making them mandatory in all of the coding that you do. It is simple code changes that will save your clients money.

From the 508 web site:

§ 1194.22 Web-based intranet and internet information and applications.

(a) A text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided (e.g., via “alt”, “longdesc”, or in element content).

(b) Equivalent alternatives for any multimedia presentation shall be synchronized with the presentation.

(c) Web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.

(d) Documents shall be organized so they are readable without requiring an associated style sheet.

(e) Redundant text links shall be provided for each active region of a server-side image map.

(f) Client-side image maps shall be provided instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape.

(g) Row and column headers shall be identified for data tables.

(h) Markup shall be used to associate data cells and header cells for data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers.

(i) Frames shall be titled with text that facilitates frame identification and navigation.

(j) Pages shall be designed to avoid causing the screen to flicker with a frequency greater than 2 Hz and lower than 55 Hz.

(k) A text-only page, with equivalent information or functionality, shall be provided to make a web site comply with the provisions of this part, when compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way. The content of the text-only page shall be updated whenever the primary page changes.

(l) When pages utilize scripting languages to display content, or to create interface elements, the information provided by the script shall be identified with functional text that can be read by assistive technology.

(m) When a web page requires that an applet, plug-in or other application be present on the client system to interpret page content, the page must provide a link to a plug-in or applet that complies with §1194.21(a) through (l).

(n) When electronic forms are designed to be completed on-line, the form shall allow people using assistive technology to access the information, field elements, and functionality required for completion and submission of the form, including all directions and cues.

(o) A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links.

(p) When a timed response is required, the user shall be alerted and given sufficient time to indicate more time is required.

Hopefully the web starts to be a more accessible place.  If you are political, please support the legislation requiring all US based websites to be 508 compliant!

(image credit kodomut)