Usability

In a study of Asset Management companies’ websites, VisibleThread finds that 98% fail to meet target clear language standards.

Baltimore, Thursday 17th November 2016. VisibleThread, a global leader in content quality management, has released the results of its clear language study of 85 Asset Management firms.

Pressure is mounting for all website content to be clear, concise and relevant. For example, the Plain Language Act of 2010 requires all US Federal agencies to communicate clearly. This is so that the public can understand and use the information. Similar government regulations are also available in the UK, Canada and Australia.

Three years ago, CMS Report made the jump from Drupal to the Agility CMS featuring its Magazine Publishing Suite. Since then, I've had the opportunity to see Agility's software evolve including improved delivery in the mobile space through responsive web design. While gradual improvements were made in the CMS, probably the biggest change for Agility Inc. was in late 2013 with the appointment of their new CEO, Jonathan Voigt.

In September's CMS-Connected show, I once again had the privilege of being a guest reviewer for their "CMS In the Spotlight" segment. This time around I reviewed e-Spirit's FirstSpirit CMS. Never heard of it? Honestly, I hadn't either until CMS-Connected Producer Gary Eisenstein assigned me the gig. Come to find out, FirstSpirit CMS helps run a number of international sites from companies like Bosch, KLM, Speedo, Sterling Jewelers, and Nintendo of Europe. While doing my homework, I walked away from the demo impressed with the amount of effort e-Spirit had done to improve usability for authors and editors. 

Oracle WebCenter Content just got a great companion product – CARA from Generis, an Oracle Gold Partner. CARA is a web-based interface on top of WebCenter Content and it provides both a high-performance / high functionality end-user experience, as well as a full suite of configuration tools that allow you to build a business use case for Oracle WebCenter without coding.

2012 may indeed be the “Year of Web Content.” Actually, so was 2011, 2010, 2009…  But this article on the Forbes Marketwatch blog describes how some big brands are attacking content marketing and content curation to help fulfill their brand promise.

Amongst content management insiders, there has been an ongoing acronym war over what the technology systems should be called that help companies manage their content online -- which quite frankly, end users care very little about.

The XOOPS Development Team is pleased to announce that a new version, XOOPS 2.5.4 Final, is available for download and testing. In addition libraries have been updated to their latest versions:

• phpMailer 5.1
• TinyMCE 3.4.6
• jQuery 1.6.4
• jQueryUI 1.8.16

• Increased productivity
• Decreased training and support costs
• Reduced development time and costs
• Reduced maintenance costs
• Increased customer satisfaction

"We're entering a new era of the web. To the ignorant masses, this transition will go largely unnoticed; they'll enjoy increased usability and convenience, with more robust functionality and more relevant data at hand. And they'll mostly just take it for granted.

However, for web designers, front-end developers and data system programmers, we have a lot of work to do."

-Laura Scott, PINGV, HTML5 + RDFa = time to get rid of that 20th century furniture, August 23, 2010

I usually stay clear of search engine optimization (SEO) discussions, but I think this video is worth your time. In the video, Corey Eulas teaches SEO tips, tricks, and best practices found to increase traffic from search engines. This talk includes examples with a look “under the hood” of a few actual sites owned by members of the audience. You will "discover how to enhance user experience and usability while making your site more search engine friendly".

Although you wouldn't expect an application with the version number of 2.3.1.5 to contain anything but bug fixes, in the world of mojoPortal almost every release contains new features for the CMS. mojoPortal 2.3.1.5 is no different with a number of changes centered around rich text editors (WYSIWYG). TinyMCE has replaced FCKeditor as mojoPortal's primary text editor.

TinyMCE Editor Rises To The Top

For a long time now the FCKeditor has been the best editor available out of the box in mojoPortal. It was the only one with the ability to browse and upload images and files, it was the only one with integration for our Content Template System and Content Style System, and it was the only one with a spelling checker. Not anymore! I had not upgraded the Tiny MCE editor in a long time, I had tried to once and it broke and I was busy so I reverted to the working version. But recently we've been having some issues with FCKeditor so I decided to give the Tiny MCE upgrade another try.

Joe Audette, mojoPortal developer, writes that FCKeditor fans shouldn't feel like they're being left behind. mojoPortal also supports the CKEditor. The makers of FCKeditor realizing that the code base for their RTE was more than six years old and needing improvements began CKEditor as its replacement. CKEditor focuses on features such as accessibility and performance improvements that weren't quite there for FCKeditor.

Besides changes for TinyMCE and CKEditor, mojoPortal 2.3.1.5 also includes these enhancements:

• New Permissions Tab in site settings
• NeatUpload 1.3.18 upgrade
• The DOCTYPE changed to Html 5 for included skins
• The default 90 days allowed to comment on a new post post can be changed
• Removed Site Office
• New translations include Hebrew and Polish. The German translation has been updated.
  

Raphael Mudge sent us an email on his latest project, After the Deadline.

I'm a computer scientist working to fill a gap in current CMS feature sets.  It isn't a new social or wireless feature.  I'm working to bring spelling, style, and grammar checking to web applications.  The technology is available for WordPress and the Open Source TinyMCE editor.

After the Deadline is an exciting plugin that adds a much needed feature often missing in most CMS rich text editors. After the Deadline currently supports plugins for TinyMCE and Wordpress. Some additional bullet points behind the plugin include: 

• Corrects spelling with 90% accuracy
• Checks 1,500 words for misuse
• Finds grammar errors
• Improves writing style
• All plugins are licensed under the LGPL