Why your CMS has to work on your phone

You do not think of the change at your desk

A managing director rarely sits at a computer all day. He is at a client, in the car, on the train to the next meeting. That is exactly where he notices what is no longer right on the website: two new people have joined the team, the seminar in March is fully booked, last week’s project is finished and missing from the references.

If he can only change it at his desk, he writes it down. By evening the note is gone. Three months later the website still shows last year.

An outdated website does quiet damage. A prospect sees old offers or a team that no longer looks like that, and asks the next company instead. You never see those enquiries. You only notice that fewer come in.

“Works on mobile somehow” is not enough

Almost every system opens somehow in a phone browser. That does not mean you can work with it. Many admin interfaces were built for a large screen and simply shrunk for the phone. You notice it at once: buttons you have to hit three times, input fields that disappear behind the keyboard, tables that run off the right edge.

Five tests before you buy

Before you choose a CMS, take your own phone and run these five tests. They take ten minutes.

1. Open an existing text, change one sentence and save. Did that work without zooming?

2. Upload a photo straight from the camera. Did you have to shrink or rename it first?

3. Tap into a field further down the page. Does it stay visible when the keyboard opens?

4. Try it in the browser you actually use, Safari or Chrome. Does a message appear anywhere telling you to use a computer instead?

5. Do the same on a train or with a weak signal. What happens to your change if the connection drops for a moment?

If a system fails one of these tests, you will not use it on the go. Then every change waits for the desk again. That is why we build and test Mesa and Kepler at phone size as well.

An example: Tom Domanh

Tom Domanh creates special effects for film and event productions, among them HandOfBlood, RocketBeansTV and Olivia Jones. He is almost always on the road and has no office where he could update a website in the evening. His portfolio website runs on Mesa. After a shoot, he adds the new project himself:

“I can add a new project with photos and all the details in five minutes, without calling anyone. That alone was worth it.”

Tom Domanh, owner of Domanh SFX

The Domanh SFX case study shows how the website was built in three days.

Answer enquiries on the go too

The same applies to enquiries. People who enquire through your website do not like to wait until the next morning. With Kepler you get a notification on your phone, see everything that was entered in the form and pass the enquiry to a colleague if needed.