Documentation and Training: The User Experience

On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry slammed his fist on a lectern in colonial Richmond VA, and thundered “Give me liberty, or give me death!.” His rousing speech led the colonies into open rebellion against King George III, altering the course of history forever. Content management owners are faced with a similar, albeit prosaic, life or death choice. Does one invest the extra time and cost into creating a usable administrative interface for their CMS? While it might not lead to revolution, the decision could lead to lower TCO versus lost revenues. A key aspect of this is training the end user.

Ease of use is crucial to the success of any data driven website, but what’s more important is making users understand how to use the site. Business owners are careful to consider usability for the customer-facing website, but often neglect to consider the crucial backend. Business users are extremely busy people who keep the lifeblood of the site circulating. If the admin website is not designed specifically for them, and they are not made to clearly understand it, the website will fail. Design for your business users as carefully as the people coming to browse the front end, because you won’t have one without the other.

Molecular content management expert, Evan Gerber share tips and approaches to consider as the website moves through its lifecycle. From design to rollout, there are inexpensive ways to train the business users, and serious repercussions if they are ignored.