[IxDA Discuss] CMS, Search, Portal and Intranet platforms - UX evaluation criteria

[Fred Beecher]

On 12/20/07, Richard Collins-Bye <r.collinsbye at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Does anyone have a list or criteria that would be useful to score the
> *potential* UX of various solutions  Of course I understand that
> there's much work to be done between opening the box and launching the
> system - it's up to us to design and build a usable solution, but I'm
> looking to avoid potential usability constrains and pitfalls that may
> be hard wired into particular products.


Are you looking to evaluate the UX of the CMS software itself or the effect
that it will have on the UX of your intranet? I'm going to assume the
latter.

You're actually in a good situation... you're changing technologies as part
of what seems to be a major redesign. This means that you can define the UX
requirements of the *intranet* before you choose a CMS technology. Once you
do that you can evaluate each potential CMS against those requirements.

A word on this evaluation... You'll definitely need to work with a rep from
each CMS company to make this happen. But when you do this, whatever you do
don't ask them, "Does your product do X?" because they will say "Yes." No
matter what. Ask them to *show you* how their product does X. Make sure the
rep brings along a tech person to this evaluation session. I can't count the
number of times I've heard a rep say "oh, well, I'll have to run that by one
of the developers."

- Fred