Chris points out the problem with most CMSs is that they are really only useful to Web people, those who have experience with working with Web sites. WordPress is Chris’ favorite CMS and mine as well. But as I have done more development with WordPress, I see that is does fall short in really empowering content owners in the way that I would want.

A possible solution: “light” CMSs. There are a growing number of these solutions available on the market today. Several of them are free services and at least one of them costs money. One of the reasons that I like WordPress is that it is free, open source software that is continually developed. The price is right for the non-profit organization I work for.

These light CMS solutions contain less features which make them simpler, and I believe, a better user experience for the content owner.

Here are the light CMS solutions that Chris highlights in his article:

• Unify — Currently in private beta. It is a product of Unit Interactive which is headed up by Andy Rutledge, one of the designers I follow on Twitter and RSS. I was not able to take a close look at it.
• Cushy CMS — this seems to be the first player in the light CMS. It is a free service.
• Page Lime — in free public beta. It has a visual editor and reminded me of Contribute.
• Perch — I really like their Web site and they have great documentation. Perch costs about $57 per domain. You host it on your own server.

Anna Debenham reviewed Perch on this week’s Boagworld Podcast. She has also used Cushy CMS. She pointed out that the major advantage of using Perch over Cushy CMS is that the files are all hosted on your own server with Perch. She had problems with the Cushy CMS server going down which meant the service was unavailable. PageLime is also hosted on their servers.

Cushy CMS, PageLime, and Perch have videos introductions about their service and good documentation to get started. It seems pretty easy to implement any of these three solutions. Cushy CMS and PageLime involve adding classes to your HTML code. Perch involved using specific PHP tags and reminded me a lot of WordPress.

From the little research I did this afternoon, I believe that Perch would be the product that I would choose. Yes, it costs money, but the big advantage is that you don’t have to worry about another server going down that you have no control over. As I mentioned, some of it’s features remind me of WordPress. It would take more technical knowledge to setup Perch. It looks like their templating system is quite powerful and gives more control to the Web designer or developer. But the advantage it has over WordPress is it’s simpler interface for the content owner.

One final note: I really liked Perch’s site. It has nice texture and illustration. It uses JQuery for some fun animated effects. The birds in the tree at the bottom animate and move into the screen on pages where you can see the footer right away.

First, You have to go to the top right to a “home” graphic to link back to the home from a secondary page. It took me several seconds to figure out how to get back to the homepage when I got deeper in the site. I would suggest making the site branding into a link back to the homepage which is a common practice.

Second, the polaroid photos in the Flash animation eventually cover up the last parts of the sentences in the welcome message. Not a good practice to cover up text that is conveying a message. A small but important detail to make sure one page element does not overlap another and make it unreadable.

This site serves as a reminder to me that elegant design needs to also be usable and think about the experience of the user. Sites “behave,” they are not just an artistic canvas. I want to be able to create sites that are elegant and provide a good user experience.

Given all that, I do like the visual design of this site. The monochromatic is nice and gives character to what the Web site is promoting so I think it does a good job of visual communication. The photos look even more vibrant because they introduce other colors into this brown palette. I also like the “realness” feel of the site and real world objects such as the photos, tape, paper, and passport.

Jared also talked about how the homepage is usually the first page that gets designed because it is the easiest (and I think can be the most fun). Content pages and other pages that get you there are harder.

Users are not on your site to hang out on your homepage. They are there to get something, whether it is buying something, getting news, reading an article or connecting with a friend. The homepage and supporting pages (departments, galleries, etc.) are there to get users to what they want.

Given this, I have been re-thinking the design process and here are preliminary thoughts for the order of attention I give to design:

1. Content pages
2. Gallery pages
3. Department pages
4. Homepage

For an explanation of these type of navigation pages, see 8 Types of Navigation Pages by Jared Spool.

Of course the day I listened to this podcast, I was working on a new design for a site and I was starting with the homepage. After hearing this podcast, I think I need to put the homepage aside and start on the content pages and work my way up.

I was thinking this morning about a survey to get to students that would tie in. I think this program would be a good starting point for a spiritual conversation. It airs on December 20 which is not a time that will work very well with the college schedule.

One final note: I was disappointed that I could not find any information about this show on abc.com or abcnews.com. I find that to be a big useability problem and a missed opportunity when they promo something but have no information on it on their site. I wanted to see the two questions they asked and when it aired. Nothing on their sites about it. I found more info by Googling “barbara walters and heaven.” I found an article on StarPulse that gave me the basic info I wanted.