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Detailed User Profiles of the Magnolia CMS
Editors
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First, let's start with the editor role. The majority of users of Magnolia are probably editors. On the one hand, if you have a big enterprise you'll implement the website at the beginning in a For large enterprises, websites are generally implemented with a relatively small group of developers and with a few administrators involved. Then you'll hire people to initially create a lot of pages and their content and this content has to be maintained over time. On the other hand, if you have a small business only, you won't have any developers at all and let the website implement some third party but you want - and this is in fact the reason why content management systems exist - create and edit your pages yourself. Thus, a CMS enables basically everyone being an author for his own website. And everyone implies that there might be experienced users but also laymen regarding . After implementation, other users are introduced to create web content which is added to, altered and maintained over time.
Small operations may have no developers at all and have their websites implemented by third party contractors. This second option is the primary reason that content management systems (CMS) exist: so that organizations can create and edit pages themselves without requiring extensive development expertise.
Thus, a CMS enables most users to be authors for their own websites. This implies that there might be expert developer/users but also laymen with little experience in regard to web software and content management.
Typical tasks of for an editor are:
- creating and editing content and pages
- organizing content (uploading, moving, re-structuring, etc.)
The scope of the editor's tasks ranges from working with the website repository, working with the document repository and propably probably working with the data module in Magnolia. But an An editor will neither be concerned with the configuration of the site nor with any security or deployment setting (let's say this is out-of-scope for the editor role).
Since there might be very different kinds of editors it makes sense to identify two important stereotypes (profiles) of editors.
Profile: Editor - Inexperienced, Sporadically Working With Magnolia
First, there These are editors that who are laymen with very little experience in working with websites or web based systems in general.
For the inexperienced editor, typical characteristics of web software might be quite new and confusing at the beginning (and this, of course, not only applies to content management systems only). Some examples include:of common events that may be new and confusing for this type of editor include:
- server delay and longer response times: application feedback oftenly frequently does not appear immediately; "simple" operations (e.g. renaming a node) take longer as than if they were performed locally
- web software is very different to from desktop software: the keyboard behavior is different (e.g. you have no tabs); no undo; assets have to be uploaded before they can be used (it's not just drag and drop as in desktop software)
- web software is distributed: different users might work on the same thing concurrently; the user has does not have his own workspace (like "My Documents") but shares all his work with others; on the web users work within sessions, loosing a session .
- Work performed within a session may be lost due to a time-out or simple due to performing a common user error such as hitting the "back"-button without having saved the state explicitely oftenly means loosing changes (typically something that users learn quickly)work explicitly and often. This can result in frustration from losing changes, although this is a problem that even inexperienced users typically learn to avoid quickly.
For experienced users, these issues are quite usual issues common with web software and normally we don't mind about them at all they may be so "normal" that experienced users do not even notice them particularly anymore. However, most of them are pretty much annoying for a beginner resulting in frustration and at the end rejection of the software., any of these issues can be so frustrating as to lead to the user rejecting the software simply because they lack the understanding and experience that allows them to overcome these common challenges.
Additionally, inexperienced users in this category generally do not use Magnolia with much regularityFurther, consider the inexperienced user does not use Magnolia regularily. Instead his usage frequency of the software is sporadic. This applies, for instance, if the user is not a dedicated person for maintaining the website in a medium sized company but only has to change some little piece of the website from time to time.
Mostly, those kind this type of editors editor only work works with basic features of Magnolia, their usage intensity of the software is facile. For them it would be helpful if the GUI would not overcharge themself with all its provide them with excessive unwanted information about the software functionality at once but instead presents presented its features as clear clearly and simple simply as possible (, perhaps by hiding the advanced or complex tools rather than presenting them side-by-side with the commonly used tools for this type of user.
Finally and complex tools).
Last but not least, the application domain knowledge of users conforming to this profile is comparable to one of a layman. That means, that although those people understand what a web page is, they don't know the relationships between understand some fundamental aspects of a CMS and the relationships between CMS muchcomponents. Especially this This particularly applies to the vocabulary used in content management systems. Non-technical people don't know what a "repository" is or what a "virtual URI" is all about. However, nowadays although it is likely that terms like "link", "page" or "address" are familiar to all of themthe vast majority of users.
As depicted with the table above, these user characteristics lead correspond to special unique requirements regarding usability. However, let me explain those consequences along with the I will explain the potential consequences of accomodating this type of user's need for usability along with more general usability principles in detail in a later post.TODO Persona
Profile: Editor - Advanced, Frequently Working With Magnolia
There are also quite a lot - if not the most - advanced editors working with Magnolia. They are also In addition to the inexperienced editor, many Magnolia users are advanced editors quite familiar with Magnolia, with CMS functionality and Web applications in general. These users also tend to be more experienced with the characteristics of web based software systems, like including content management systems or and blogs etc.
Those advanced These editors/authors use Magnolia very frequently. E.g. imagine an author that regularily . A typical user of this category is an author/editor who regularly writes articles for an online magazine or . Alternatively, this may be a dedicated person in a company whose daily job it is to author a companies or departments website. They have oftenly develop, maintain and post a company's or department's website. These users have frequently recurring tasks and typically have to manage or organize a big large amount of data simultaneously. Thus, from time to time they these users will not only use the basic editing capabilities of Magnolia but will also request advanced features and complex tools that allow them performing to perform their tasks easier more easily and more efficientefficiently. Their usage intensity therefore is - at least with regard to the authoring tools of Magnolia - is very intensive.
Further, compared Compared to the relatively inexperienced author described above, the advanced editor is more of an expert regarding the application domain knowledge. The longer he works with the system the more familiar he becomes with the application domain. That is, he more and more increasingly understands the domain model behind the CMS and thus also better understands the vocabulary of that domain.
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