December 18th, 2008 by John Williams

Putting the “Management” in “Content Management System”

Filed under Development

We use Wordpress for our own web site CMS.

Does this sound like you?

I want this headline red. It won't turn red! Why won't it turn red? I want this paragraph centered. It won't center! I need a different typeface, but I can't have one! This is so easy to do in Word, why can't I do it here?

If it seems like the CMS is actively working against you, that's because it is. CMSs are intentionally designed to limit your options. But why would anyone do that?

Content Management Systems are not design tools

A lot of the grief end-users have with CMSs comes from trying to use the CMS like a word processor or a page layout program. But they are really databases. If you think of every piece of content you put into a CMS as "data" and how the content looks as a "report" you won't be far off.

This is why they are called "content management systems." They control whether or not a piece of content is published, who is allowed to edit it, what kind of information is collected, and some of the more advanced systems build complex relationships between different types of content.

But to do this, the content has to be semantically structured. That means, the content has to be stored according to what it is, not how it looks.

How the content looks gets in the way of doing these other things, so Content Management Systems try not to worry about that until the "reporting" process — when the data is actually displayed for someone to read.

CMSs treat websites like database reports

When you make a report from a database, you define columns and rows of information. Sometimes you can control layout, fonts, colors, charts, and graphs. But all of these decisions are made independent of the data — because who cares if the sales for next quarter are blue and set in 16 point Georgia?

If you need a new piece of data or want to remove one, you change the report format. If you need to change layout, you change the report. The data doesn't change. The data doesn't even get touched.

Content Management systems treat your content the same way.

The big advantages

There are three big advantages to letting a content management system do its thing.

First, after the templates are built and the style rules settled, you don't have to worry about it any more. That is a burden that has been lifted from your shoulders. All you have to do now is write good content, and let the CMS's templates do their things.

Secondly, if you ever need to use your content for a different use — or use it in several different designs at one time — you can do this. You just provide the different templates. This way you can provide the same data on a web site, in a Flash application, or on a mobile device like an iPhone or a Blackberry.

Templates and stylesheets define how your content looks without knowing what your content actually is.

Finally, if anyone is inclined to get "creative" with the preparation and violate your style rules, they will find they can't. Because CMS systems try to keep presentation instructions away from the data, they try to prevent people from making design decisions on the fly.

Flexibility in its place

All of this may sound authoritarian, restrictive, and creativity-squelching. But many CMSs can handle very complex presentation logic. The Prospective Students site for California State University at East Bay is handled using a CMS. There are lots of templates and thousands of style rules. So you can do great things with CMSs; not all sites have to look like something off of Blogger.

But those design decisions need to be made in a structured environment and with some thought as to how they will affect other designs. You just can't make those decisions on the writing screen.

People who want to make those decisions at write-time will probably never have an easy time with Content Management Systems. But that's not because the CMS is broken; it's because it's doing what the CMS is designed to do.

Speak up.

Respect.NewCity will never distribute, sell or otherwise treat your information like its ours to run around all willy-nilly, hither and yon with. That's because we appreciate your contribution to the conversation.

Putting the “Management” in “Content Management System”

Content Management Systems are not design tools