CMS choice and ease of use?

[Juliana Perry]

Our most difficult challenge as we continue to search for a CMS is finding something that's going to make editing a relatively easy experience (with training, of course) for our less technical users who do most of the content editing, but will let us (and users who are more comfortable with complex options) have sufficient flexibility. We're currently using Adobe Contribute, and that's definitely not meeting the need, but it seems hard to strike the right balance with a CMS.

I realize there is no one true answer here, but I'm curious what people have found to be particularly friendly for a large group (90+ with one primary support person, me) of mostly less-technical users.

 

At the moment, we're particularly curious about Expression Engine. We've heard great things from developers, but it's not clear to us how simple the average end user finds it. Opinions?

 

Thanks for your CMS wisdom, all!

 

-Juliana Perry

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Web Services Project Manager

Bryn Mawr College

 

 

[Kris Martin-Baker]

Whichever you select will end up being usable by those editors who a) are reasonably comfortable with technology and b) use it a lot and get used to how it works. Letting everyone edit who wants to leads to constant hand-holding and is a severe time drain. If at all possible, limit those working with the CMS to a few well-chosen people. The rest can get content changed/updated by working with those few. Nothing works well when you only access it once a month.

[Jay Massey]

You may find this link helpful, I know I am!

Compare Content Management Systems
http://www.cmsmatrix.org  

 

Jay

[David McKelvey]

Juliana,

 

In the educational CMS space, I’d recommend that you take a look at LiveWhale:

http://www.livewhale.com/

 

Out of the box, it is designed to be easy to use for non-frequent users, and if you have a few people like I do that are interested in higher-end content, then it can do that too. It is written in PHP (like expression engine) and when you purchase it you get a license to the code — you can write custom modules for if you wish/need.

 

We currently have about 600-700 active users supported by about 2 FTE. We do occasional refresher classes, one-on-one training and have posted a bunch of screencasts. My usual mantra to newbies is that if they’ve done any blogging, tweeting, etc. they will have no trouble using LiveWhale.

 

Feel free to contact me if you need more information or have other questions.

 

David

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David W. McKelvey

Director of New Media

Lewis & Clark

[e-mail]

[Jay Massey]

David,

Thanks from me too on the LiveWhale info.  I will add it to my list of prospective CMSs.

Jay

[Mike Takahashi]

Idealware also has a very in-depth and informative white paper that reviews and compares the following CMS platforms: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Plone. It's a little outdated now, but will give you a good grasp of these CMS's. See attachment below.

 

Mike