While working in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, there was demand for a lot of new websites to raise awareness and funds for the rebuilding effort. Through trial and error I learned that a content management system (CMS) was the best way to help my new clients interact and present themselves on the internet.

Upon arrival in New Orleans as a web designer I realized that I could easily become overwhelmed with the amount of work. The first organization I began work with already had a website running on Drupal. They asked for my assistance with the site so I dug in and learned more about content management systems. I had seen and heard about CMS websites, but until then had always coded static sites in html and css. The downside of websites such as I had been working with is that clients had to either learn html, or contact me every time they needed something edited.

So, the combination of the what could become overwhelming workload in New Orleans and this introduction to CMS, Most non-techies avoid learning html like cats avoid leashes. I soon saw the great benefit of my many New Orleans clients using a CMS. Each client was different. Each client had different needs. With a CMS I was able to streamline all of my clients into a content management system that could be tailored to each individual client’s needs. At the same time I was able to avoid cats, leashes and frustrated clients on the outer rim of html learning curves.

CMS websites, are also often called – for good reason – . Once designed and configured the website is built in such a way that anyone who is provided access can use a simple wysiwyg editor (or MS Word, open office, or any other rich text editor) and make updates and manage the website. The use of CMS means that clients can take ownership of their websites in a day to day fashion, leaving us time to roll out the clients’ broader design ideas.

Designers involved with CMS websites add features such as calendars, forms, photo galleries. All of these new features can be easily accessed and updated by clients. Upon looking at the extensions available I soon realized that my CMS websites could accomplish so much more than my previous statically designed websites. This is why I have converted almost all of my previous clients websites over to Joomla.

Now finally we get to the title of this blog Why Joomla.. Drupal (the first CMS I learned) is very powerful. However, over time and with help of friends (Thanks Nick!) I came around the use of Joomla as my primary CMS. I have seen that Joomla has an easier user interface within demo sites. For this reason Joomla is less intimidating than Drupal for my clients.

I have since realized that with Joomla there is a huge variety of available templates. I have learned how to apply my html and css skills to create custom templates and even take a client’s existing website and convert it to Joomla. In this way the site visitors see no difference, but the client can easily log in and edit their site.

I am happy to report that the sites we rolled out in New Orleans have been met with great success. Though we still help with content updates on some sites, other clients have thrived with their new sites. I love to my clients’ sites and see all the new and changing content! These clients contact us for support, design changes, or to add new features. In this way we are left with more time to build and work on new sites.

The CMS movement is radically changing how we as designers interact with our clients and how our clients ultimately interact with the world.

Thanks to Sean David Hobbs for editing this article