Brian, in this climate (or any other) I'd go for the total WIIFM package. In a perfect world, all other things being equal: - the CMS-aware designer will have a better chance of designing something that works within a given CMS framework/platform, - the CMS-aware designer's consultancy boss will get more work for the CMS-aware designer, and - the CMS-aware designer's client will get a better job with less faffing about (i.e. more effective and efficient, ultimately a better job for the same money).
I haven't included "the CMS-aware designer's coder/infrastructure-architecture colleagues will ultimately get a better specification (i.e. one that specifies a design that they can actually implement without wholesale translation)" because you seem to have that covered :) If you can produce and deliver a course that reduces the learning curve then you will be doing everyone a favour. Something to keep in mind is that "the way Sharepoint does it" (or any other CMS) is not usually going to be the same as "the way we implement Sharepoint around here" - which is an opportunity for in-house tailored training. Cheers, Andrew On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 1:57 AM, Brian Henkel < [email protected]> wrote: > I'm planning to teach a course on how knowledge of Content Management > Systems makes us better user experience designers. In this course, we > will survey many prevalent CMS tools (slated at the moment: WordPress, > Drupal, Joomla, Sharepoint, Expression Engine) to review how they work, > analyze their capabilities and limitations, and overall, make > non-technical designers more conversant with these technologies. It is > my belief that this background not only helps a designer when > formulating/proposing a solution, but is also valuable in discussions > with other (perhaps more-technical) project team members. > > > > I'd like to get thoughts and ideas from the community: How does > knowledge of Content Management Systems make us better user experience > designers? Literature on this topic seems to be scarce, so a > recommendation for further research is welcomed as well. > > > > > > > > Brian Henkel > User Experience > > Manifest Digital > 1200 West Lake Street > Chicago, IL 60607 > manifestdigital.com > > 312 235 3024 v > 773 331 7645 c > 312 803 9669 f > > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [email protected] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > -- --- Andrew Boyd http://onblogging.com.au ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
