SuperSatellite

Don’t Contribute

// January 24th, 2008 // Software, Tech, Web

What follows is a slightly re-edited (for clarity) version of my thoughts on using Adobe Contribute to run a site. It was originally posted to the uwebd mailing list during a discussion of different CMS (Content Management System) options that are out there. This was in response to a question directed to me regarding what I considered a “modern website” with respect to Adobe Contribute.

Why isn’t Contribute equipped to handle large scale (~10,000+ pages) sites? Contribute doesn’t really have the tools to do anything with regards to content reuse across a site. So as a result, there’s no way to develop interactivity (well, really, you can’t develop anything with it, it’s not a developer tool). You can also forget about getting fancy by integrating things like RSS feeds, or dynamic content in any useful ways (consider, Department X wants a list of their courses for the semester, if they are copy/pasting, there’s no way to control that content once they have plugged it in, which hurts when they totally forget about it the next semester). Contribute is best at static content, on static pages. One page at a time. The newest version (CS3) has done marginally better, in that you can at least paste HTML source code now, but the actual audience that Contribute is aimed at won’t really find that useful. If they knew and understood HTML well, they’d be using Dreamweaver, or at least NVU or something. The crazy part is how good it looks on paper, that idea of simple content management. The reality isn’t that good, especially for developers who must then deal with all the deadwood Contribute leaves behind as things get updated, removed, etc (which is substantial). And don’t forget any template changes you have to make, which would have to be filtered into every file, which is very time consuming (we use SSI (Server Side Include) templates to help stave that issue off, but then that has also caused certain bugs preventing people from creating things like bulleted lists. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen).

I am of the mindset that Contribute has lost its market. It was a good tool five years ago. The game has changed a lot in that time though. A good CMS does everything that Contribute can do with no more of an end-user learning curve, but with the added bonus of being flexible for use with the better power users you serve. Contribute doesn’t have any room to scale up that way. Power users get frustrated in it, and basic users just get lost. The key is that a basic user is a basic user. Period. No matter how simple the software seems on paper, you still have to train them before they can use it, so you might as well give them a tool that not only does things easily, but does them right. For instance, workflow is a joke with Contribute, and as a result page management becomes nearly impossible (and in turn confusing for basic users). There is no review mechanism at all, so content can quickly become outdated and never addressed down the road. We have departments that have copied information from other parts of the site that is out of date by years. This is because they haven’t had the tools to do it correctly in the past.

Like I said, Contribute is designed to do one thing very well, edit static content on static pages. If that is all you want, go nuts, but try anything beyond that and it’s just a bad tool for the job. And in today’s web, a “modern site” is one that generally does not rely on static content this way.  Moreover, a “modern site” is one that also provides current, accurate, fresh data. If you have no ability to keep up on your content in some way, you are setting yourself up for failure. Anyone managing a large site knows that you can’t rely on the editors to simply take it upon themselves to review content (assuming that’s not their primary job).  People rely on web sites now, it’s one of their first stops when they want information on something. If they lose faith in the site as a tool to retrieve accurate information on the subject they want, then you lose a customer. The crazy, lock-me-up-I’m-going-cuckoo goal of a “modern website” is therefore to be omniscient in regards to their audience. You must have a current and correct answer to every question your visitors can and will ask. Totally impossible, I know, but it’s what the audience expects, and there are a lot of ways we can certainly fake it with current web technologies. I don’t feel Contribute is up to that kind of job (not by a long shot).

(Caveat: this is all based on my personal experience in our environment with ~70 Contribute users. We do not run the Contribute Publishing Server.  No doubt others might have more positive opinions.)