Outstanding examples of permission management UIs

The problem with permissions is they are a part of administration,
which often means it is something required by the CMS to work, but
outside the scope of what the 'real' users are going to have to
deal with. In other words, it get's a raw deal.

Right-now, the general concept of permissions is really shallow.
There is about one kind of permission 'system' and it is often the
wrong one for the task at hand.

Permissions simulate something in the real world, but they have
unfortunately been tainted by the same concept as implemented by
computers forever. The two things aren't the same. So you end up,
invariably, with many user types with really large CMSs.

The solution is not universal. It requires treating permissions NOT
as an afterthought but as the primary control structure for what your
users can get to.

In some cases this might mean the traditional system, but with more
thought about it from day one. Common, but it shouldn't be the
default.

Almost any CMS designed for a specific setting is going to be better
served by some other method. Or at least a two stage method. And for
the love of god multifaceted and not one-group one-person.

If your CMS has 5 major sections: Media generation, Authoring,
Section Management, Page construction, and Administration. You might
not need more than those 5 user-types where you can mix and match.

In which case, adding new types isn't something you need in the CMS
itself at all.

It really depends on the system you are building. But regardless, you
need a holistic approach. Not a one-stop-shop solution for all CMSs.

As a side note. I find all one-size-fits-all CMS solutions to be
abominable. Perhaps some lower-budget sites 'need' these to exist.
And I see the desire for people using the free ones. But at the end
of the day, I rather see more site-type-specific CMS solutions. Blog,
News, So on.

In the end, CMS is making the web more and more hum-drum and samey.
Convention is great, but only when it is the right ones, and only
when it doesn't stand in the way...

Then again, an easy-enough to use same-o CMS beats a crapily built
custom CMS.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=37015

2009/1/12 Harry <harrybr at gmail.com>:
> Thanks very much to Fred, James and William for their input.
>
> The CMS I'm working on involves administering users' abilities to use
> credits and raise invoices, as well as to draft / publish content in various
> areas of the site. It looks like a classic power/complexity trade off. Fine
> grained controls might be useful for a minority of user groups, at the
> expense of the majority who instead would prefer simple functionality with a
> simple UI...

It might be a good idea to get a whole bunch of content management
systems together and look at all of their user management interfaces –
I find bad interfaces can provide inspiration too (of what not to do,
obciously).

--
Regards,
Danny Hope
http://linkedin.com/in/dannyhope
07595 226 792