Fundamentals – CMS – What’s possible?
Content management is this kind of other-worldly thing to most people… What’s possible? What can I do? What if we did this? What if we did that?
The short answer is that a CMS system is capable of virtually anything you can imagine (as it pertains to website maintenance.) The real questions are “how much would it cost to build it?” and “how much would it be worth to me?”
General survey of what’s possible:
* Changing a snippet of text on a specific page
* Changing an image on a certain page
Taking things further, CMS can:
* Create a totally new page
* Create a totally new section of a website that can have multiple pages within it
Taking it even further, a CMS can:
* Swap site-wide graphics like a logo
* Change font sizes, text alignment, colors, etc.
In fact:
* A CMS can allow you to build your entire site from scratch
So. Why not go for “the ultimate” CMS? The simple answer is that you’re probably not a web designer… The point of a CMS is to empower you to change the types of things that need changed on the website that will make your life easier, and keep within your corporate identity.
Let’s repeat that… “Within your corporate identity.” If your identity designer has done a good job, -they have specific requirements for how your logo is used, what fonts are used, how typography is treated, how colors are used, and etc. If you don’t know what kerning or leading are. If you don’t know how to convert a PMS color to RGB, you might not be the best person to update your website.
Corporate identity is a question of degrees. The more you allow your identity to be watered down, and degraded, -the less value it has.
The majority of our CMS systems allow our clients to swap images, swap text, and do minimal changes to organization of pages. We find that when we over-do an admin, a client typically feels overwhelmed by the amount of decisions, and complexity. It’s much easier to try and estimate the actual usage of the system, and tailor it toward that usage…
When a client changes text on a CMS built by us, -a master CSS style sheet makes sure that the typefaces, kerning, leading, etc, are carefully maintained within the identity standards. We empower our clients to do the things they are best at. We empower our websites to maintain the integrity of the identity that they are subservient to.