There’s a special kind of dread that sets in when you open your CMS to update a headline and find yourself staring at something that looks suspiciously like Visual Studio. Suddenly, changing a button label feels like deploying a microservice.
Let’s cut to the chase. A CMS should feel like a publishing tool. Not a project in GitHub.
When “User-Friendly” Isn’t
If you’ve ever been told, “Oh, that’s easy, just drop this JSON into the block configuration file,” then congratulations. You’ve been lied to. What developers call easy and what editors need are two very different things.
You know what’s actually easy? Clicking on text and typing.
You shouldn’t have to:
- Inspect page elements to find out where to change content
- Read documentation just to add a new team member
- File a ticket because you can’t find the save button
Modern CMS platforms should put user experience first. Not as an afterthought, but as the entire point. Editors are not developers, and forcing them to act like developers is a fast track to burnout.
Developer-Focused by Default? That’s a Red Flag
Plenty of CMSs love to market their “headless-first” or “API-driven” approach. And sure, there’s a place for that. But if you’re a marketing team trying to post a new press release, the last thing you want is to navigate a decoupled front end that makes publishing feel like programming.
Don’t confuse developer power with editorial usability. You can have both if the platform is designed with a clear separation between editorial workflows and code-level customization.
Concrete CMS gets this right. Developers can build the custom blocks and themes they love. Editors get clean, intuitive in-context tools that make publishing feel like writing a doc, not launching a rocket.
What a Content-First CMS Looks Like
A content-first CMS makes things obvious. It’s designed for real people doing real jobs under real deadlines. It should offer:
- A clean, visual editing interface
- Logical content structures that mirror your site
- Help text that’s actually helpful
- No-code customization for layouts and modules
- Built-in support for workflows and approvals
And it shouldn’t crash if someone forgets a semicolon.
The Real Cost of a Dev-Centric CMS
Here’s the part no one wants to talk about. When your CMS feels like a dev environment, everything takes longer. You lose velocity, frustrate your content team, and create an environment where only a few people can actually make updates. That usually leads to burnout or attrition.
You know what that looks like? Stale pages. Old PDFs. Broken trust.
You deserve better. Your team deserves tools that support their work, not tools they have to fight with.
Publishing Shouldn’t Require Debugging
Your CMS should be a canvas. Not a compiler. The moment it starts to feel like dev work just to update a page, something’s gone wrong.