Designing Web Application Interfaces

[digitxp]

Hey all,

I'm planning (over a really long term) to build a custom CMS for my robotics team site. The basic premise behind it is that Wordpress, while really good compared to some other software, still has friction between getting on the site and publishing posts (we're trying to encourage team members to write more about their experience and the technology on the blog).

That said, it means that the interface design has to be really good. If anything stops a user from pushing out that first blog post (besides writer's block) then it puts the CMS to a disadvantage.

Does anyone here have experience designing interfaces? If so, could you recommend some good books or websites I could look into?

Any help is appreciated. :-)

[GGCO]

Pro tip: Don't roll your own CMS ever. There's no reason to when there are so many great open source/free ones already.

[RyanCahoon]

Alternate formulation of the problem: instead of trying to a) reinvent the wheel and b) force your teammates into using the interface you have (or anyone else has) designed, no matter how slick,

Let them write their blog posts in Microsoft Word, iPad, their email client (I've written some pretty good essays using Gmail), charcoal stick and parchment, or other tool of their choice. Then have them email, sneakernet, carrier pidgeon, or otherwise transfer the document to you, and then you can post it.

You'll save yourself the effort of having to train people how to use your interface as well.

Cheers,

[dk5sm5luigi]

I have to agree with everyone else here. Writing your own CMS ssounds good right now but in a year or so when something breaks or new features are needed you will wish you went with an off the shelf package that is easy to extend to do what you need.

I know this from experience.

[shawn.schwartz]

What I would recommend is using the Ruby Gem "Jekyll" as a CMS for blog posts. For our team website, we use it, and once you get your website designed, it is as easy to post a blog post as writing it in a markdown file and putting it in the "_posts" folder. What is also great about Jekyll is that you can create a template for your website, so that when you want to change something on the page, you only have to change it on your one template page, and it will change on every page.

Having a Jekyll site just requires the knowledge of creating a website by custom-coding the HTML, CSS, and the Jekyll syntax.

Here are some helpful websites for getting a Jekyll site up and running:

HTML & CSS - http://w3schools.com/

Jekyll - http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/ot...s-with-jekyll/

and

http://ostatic.com/blog/build-your-site-with-jekyll

If you have any questions about Jekyll, feel free to ask me. I hope this can help you!

[Dustin Shadbolt]

I agree with everyone. I still use CMS packages like WordPress to this day. Yes you might have to make modifications to get exactly what you want. BUT there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. Every team website I did for my old team was powered by WordPress. I love the flexibility, support forums/videos/books, VAST amount of plugins/extensions, and ease of use. I had our older shop mentor able to write a post in no time.

If you don't like WordPress, there are countless others. Good luck!

[blockhead]

I agree with every one else. Although the idea is cool you have to look at it in a realistic stand point. You will be putting long hours into creating and testing you own cms system but on the other hand it is certintly a gratifying thing to achive... just to say I made this. There our many cms's out there. We used drupal and compleatly designed and costomized our own layout... http://team537.org