Getting rid of the chrome

A client today at the end of a Joomla! training session made a very illuminating commment along the lines of “You tech guys have hijacked Joomla! so that it's more difficult to use than it should be, so that you’re kept in a job”.

His point was that as the owner and content editor of his site, he just wanted to add some pages and menu items.

Time was that adding a post was job enough for a non-technical content editor. Now the goal posts have been widened further, so that the very fabric of the site (ie the global structure) should be alterable by the editor.

This is a relatively drag ‘n’ drop affair in WordPress, but in Joomla! and Drupal you do need a fair degree of understanding to accomplish what many now perceive to be a Natural Right of content editors.

What is interesting is the focus on User eXperience in Drupal, and the importance of the workflow for content editors, with such modules as Workbench.

It also strikes a chord with a comment made by Josh Clark in his podcast interview with Lullabot, where he touches upon chromeless browsers on mobiles.

This is a common theme: getting rid of the chrome, so that you aren’t even aware of the browser on your mobile, the CMS that manages your website and the touch screen that connects the user far more directly with the task at hand than a poky old mouse ever could.