Content authors are people too.

We spend a lot of time here at Thirst Studios thinking of the end user. We research them, we test with them, we design for them, and we build for them. The success of the majority of our projects relies on the happiness of these users … our clients customers. If they are happy, then our clients are happy, and ultimately … we are happy (with a little glow in our hearts for a job well done!).

I’m always proud when a new site or app launches, and you can see that users are having a great experience. The UX team continue to review the project, making sure that everything on the front-end of the site works as expected. Group hugs all around!

The slightly less glamorous side of launching a new site is the content management system (CMS), and the small group of usually overlooked users … the content authors. Why bother spending any time creating a good Authoring Experience when only a few … a handful at most … people will ever see it?

These authors are often your client … who pay you … so going that little step further and providing them with a good authoring experience means that they will love you that little bit more, and (hopefully) recommend you to other businesses.

The other benefits of course are even more selfish. By providing a better authoring experience, this makes the system easier to use and understand, and therefore you need to spend less time documenting how to use the CMS.

So what makes a good Authoring Experience? Lots of things obviously, but here are a few simple tricks to help create a better authoring experience.

Reusing content is all very well, but don’t over complicate the information structure

Write it once and use it anywhere is the fundamental basis of most content management systems, but don’t let it get in the way of a good authoring experience. Be thoughtful with how you split up your content across different CMS entries, categories of information, and even in how many specific content fields you use for an individual entry.

Have fields flow as they do on the page

If your CMS allows it, move your content entry fields around so that they are in the same flow as content on the front-end page. If the title is at the top, put the title field first. If the hero image comes next, put that field after the title. All the fields should follow this same front-end template layout allowing the author to follow down the page editing as they go.

Hide fields that are not required

Only show the author what they need to see. They are busy people, and don’t need ALL the options that are available in the CMS. If they don’t need a field, template, section, add-on, etc, then don’t give them access to it. You can always turn it on later for them.

Less is more. Allow them to focus on the content, and not worry about all the other cool things your CMS could do.

This goes for your WYSIWYG editor as well … authors do NOT need all the content options. Simply provide them with the basics such as bold, italic, lists, images, embeds.

Label fields correctly

It doesn’t cost more to add a few extra words into your field names. Rather than labelling a field “Image” or “Page picture”, provide a more comprehensive description for the field such as “Top of the page hero image”.

Provide instructions

On top of labelling fields correctly, providing in-context instructions or examples as part of the editing form is invaluable. This is particularly relevant to images … provide some dimensions and editing tips to provide the best possible image for this field.

Show a live preview of page

No I’m not talking about providing a WYSIWYG editor … this does NOT show an author what they are going to see on the live site. I’m referring to showing them a fully rendered preview of the front-end page. Nothing helps more than seeing the end result for the author to help put it all in context. Content management systems like CraftCMS do a fantastic job of this out of the box.

Your CMS is not MS Word or an OS

Remember that your CMS is not Microsoft Word, and it is not an Operating System (OS). Whilst you may think it seems sensible to make your CMS and WYSIWYG editors look like MS Word, or an OS, this can just be confusing to the author. Let the CMS stand-alone, and do what it does best … manage content.

Over the years, we’ve seen way to many content management systems try to emulate an interface that they perceive authors use “everyday”. When that interface changes, the CMS not only starts to look and feel clunky and old fashion (which reduces the confidence in using it!), but the user experience advantage you were trying to achieve has been removed.

Yes, I’m looking at you ASP.Net content management systems. You know who you are.

Do I really have to write a CMS guide …

After all of the above, your authors shouldn’t need a CMS guide! The site should be so easy to maintain, that even your luddite best-mate can do it.

Joking aside, obviously providing a guide is the preferred option, however it’s often quite a large task. My advice is to provide a CMS guide … even a simple one. This could be in the form of a written document, or better yet, try a few short screen captured videos. They don’t have to be high fidelity … just something to show them how to use the basic functions of the CMS.

So just remember, content authors are people too … and we owe it to them to provide a great Authoring Experience. If you are ever in doubt, about whether to spend that little bit of extra time for your content authors, keep in mind that it will save you time in the long run on support and maintenance, and just might put you over the line on winning that next project!

Each client is different, and will have differing levels of experience in using content management systems, so work to the lowest level.

If you have any other great ideas to improve the Authoring Experience for your clients, post them in the comments!