Choosing a CMS
27th January 2016
Choosing a CMS
27th January 2016
- 2 minute read
WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Grav and Craft to name but a few. These are what we know as a Content Management System (CMS) and all these systems work fundamentally in the same way. The basic premise of a CMS is to allow the users of a website to which it is assigned to literally manage the content within the website. Text content, photos and videos, the user has control of what content is available on the site and to varying degrees, how it is presented.
Each and every CMS has been written by a different set of developers who have set out to solve the sets of problems as presented to them, so the way one CMS approaches management of content tends to be very different from another. Just as buildings are built very differently to suit different purposes and needs, content management systems vary in their approaches, styles and underlying structures. Some CMS systems are squarely aimed at web developers, others take a less technical approach. All require a basic working knowledge of how a website functions in terms of a group of individual assets pulling together to form a whole.
So how do we choose a CMS for a particular project? We don’t believe in a one system fits all approach, we take into account the requirements of the website as set out today and also in discussion with you what we think those requirements might become further down the track. We also take into account the user experience levels of those people who will be responsible for managing the website content, perhaps those users are willing to learn a new system, perhaps time is limited and learning needs to be kept to a minimum. We also need to consider technical factors such as hosting, the storage of assets, firewalls or security policies.
Projects for the re-design of a website generally fall into the category of a CMS website because many websites will utilise one. This is not to say that every website needs or should have a CMS, in some instances a CMS is simply excess weight. The original development team will have selected a CMS, either an off-the-shelf product or perhaps something they have created in-house, but they too will have had their reasons for this and presented them to you. Where we are commissioned to work on such a project we will discuss the existing setup and make our recommendations to you in line with your list of requirements. Where a website does not utilise a CMS we will generally opt to utilise one, if it matches the requirements of the project.
If you’d like to discuss your current setup or perhaps you’re thinking its time to make some changes, please get in touch.