While it's great to have a website that looks amazing and works well, a school website is only doing its job if it also makes life easier for the people who keep your website running—your school's admins.

A full, top-to-bottom understanding of user experience (UX) means thinking about how easy a website is to use for students, parents, teachers, AND the staff who update and manage the site. Too often, the people actually managing it are pushed aside and forgotten in favor of the end-user. It’s well-intended, but unfortunate.

Ideally, you should be able to quickly edit text, upload images, set up a redirect, add links, and so much more without needing a degree in computer engineering — or wizardry. Some content management systems (CMS) for schools seem to require you to have prior coding knowledge or use clunky, outdated interfaces that turn five-minute tasks into hour-long ordeals.

When your site is simple to manage, it means your website administrators can keep it filled with engaging content, the latest news and stories, and the resources your community needs to make the whole school better informed and connected.

Having a great experience for admins means making sure the behind-the-scenes parts of the website are just as impressive as the parts everyone sees.

A Good UX Matters for Everyone

For the visitors to your school's website, like parents checking the calendar for the next school event, a good user experience means they can find what they need quickly and without hassle.

If the website is easy to navigate, looks good, and works well on any device, users are happy, more engaged with your school, and more likely to come back. It’s often the main focus when schools think about redesigning their website or switching website providers, and rightly so.

But the experience of web and school administrators—those adding news, updating content, or editing information—holds equal weight. If the admin side of the website is complicated, slow, or overrun with bugs and glitches, updating the website becomes a much bigger task than it needs to be, and that trickle-down effect hurts the end user: frustrated visitors don’t return, and jaded administrators don’t update their site, go off-brand, or waste too much time just struggling to publish content. 

School Websites that Serve Admins AND Users

A content management system that’s easy for users to navigate and admins to edit and update is the goal, and that means choosing a platform that values both sides of the user experience.

For your users, it’s a pleasing design that’s user-friendly and works well on a mobile device. For admins, the best CMS for school websites includes simple, drag-and-drop tools for updating content, intuitive interfaces that make sense without a manual, and quick, responsive customer support for when things might not go as planned.

If you can have both the visitors AND the people managing the site have a good experience, your school can strengthen its connection to its community, keep everyone informed, and make the daily tasks of administrators a little easier.

Benefits of a CMS Platform with a Great Admin UX

When the admin side of a school's website platform is designed with the admin user experience in mind, it changes the way administrators manage and update the site, with:

Time Savings

Instead of wrestling with confusing interfaces or cumbersome processes, your school's website content management system should be easy to update and allow you to make changes quickly and effortlessly. Using Finalsite’s CMS, Composer, you can spend less time editing web pages and more time on other important tasks, such as strategizing for better school communications or engaging more directly with families.

"I can't even begin to tell you the time that I've saved now that we have Finalsite. Like, holy moly!” said Mary Helen Downey of Rapides Parish School Board. “I wish I could clone myself because the tasks tend to just stack up, but the fact that I can get on and send out messaging and attach a page pop in less than a minute is huge.”

Reduced Frustration and Burnout

Admin tasks on a poorly designed platform can be a major source of frustration, which, over time, can lead to burnout (or wanting to throw your computer out the window). When you can log in, make your updates, and easily send and edit communications (even from an app), your job becomes less about fighting with technology and more about achieving your communication goals.

Increased Productivity and Content Quality

With the technical barriers removed, you’ll have more time and energy to write engaging news articles, informative updates, and compelling content that resonates with your school community, which is the reason you got into this profession in the first place, right?

Enhanced Communication

An admin-friendly platform helps important information get published quickly and accurately, whether it's a last-minute event change, an urgent mass notification, or a highlight of recent student achievements.

Empowerment Through Training and Support

Knowledge is power, and a platform that comes with comprehensive training and support empowers you to make the most of all its features and modules.

Unfortunately, some website providers leave you to figure out changes on your own, or the dreaded, “That’s a great idea, why won’t “suggest it in the forum?” response. When new features are added or updates to the platform are made, you should have access to clear guidance, training materials, and helpful support—period.

Long-term Sustainability

Finally, like a car that’s proactively serviced every few months, it's actually easier to maintain a consistently high-quality and up-to-date website. Instead of major redesigns every seven years, regular updates and refreshes mean that your school's digital front door remains welcoming and modern for years to come.

Features to Look For in an Admin-Friendly Platform

When searching for school website design companies, find a full platform that not only makes it easy for your school community to explore and learn but also simplifies the management and updating process for administrators.

To know you're choosing the best content management system for a school website that's also admin-friendly, look for:

Intuitive, Flexible Page Editing with Drafting

The ideal platform should offer a user-friendly CMS that allows you to edit pages easily, add images and videos, create blog posts, and arrange layouts without needing advanced technical skills.

Look for drag-and-drop functionality that lets you see what your page will look like as you build it, across multiple devices, like Composer’s device preview. The ability to save drafts is also essential because it gives you the flexibility to work on updates or new pages over time before making them live. That way, you can review and refine content, get approvals if necessary, and publish only when you’re ready.

Advanced Permissions

A school’s website often requires multiple users to keep it updated. A platform with advanced permissions enables you to assign specific roles and access levels to different team members based on their role, the page, or specific areas of the site, like banners, navigational elements, or headers and footers.

For example, a teacher could be given the ability to update their blog but not the entire site, while a sports coach could update scores and schedules for their teams. This supports security but also ensures that updates are made efficiently by those closest to the information, without overburdening a single administrator.

COPE (Create Once, Publish Everywhere)

The COPE principle is about maximizing the efficiency and reach of all different types of content. An admin-friendly platform should allow you to create content once and then easily repurpose or redistribute it across multiple channels or pages on your site.

Using Finalsite’s Resouce module and the COPE functionality, Sean Siciliano of Middleborough Public Schools puts this into practice with his edits to the district’s site: “The ability to copy and paste content in different places and the ability to swap out elements is so effective,” he said.

“For example, if we have a snow day, our whole school calendar changes. When you're pointing six different pages to one PDF, like the school calendar, you can go in, swap the resource, and you know that it's updated everywhere. It definitely saves time, but the peace of mind is worth it tenfold.”

Seamless Integrations

Your school's website needs to work in harmony with other communication tools and systems you use, such as your student information system (SIS), email marketing platforms, and even your enrollment software. Seamless integrations mean less manual work transferring data between systems and more time for you to focus on creating.

Advanced Security

An admin-friendly platform must offer advanced security features to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access or breaches. 

This includes:

• Secure hosting
• Regular security updates
• Encrypted data transmission
• Compliance with data protection regulations

Knowing that your platform is equipped with security measures allows you to manage your site with confidence.

ADA Compliance

Accessibility is a crucial aspect of any school website so that all members of your community, regardless of their abilities, can access and benefit from your site's content. When choosing a platform, look for one that prioritizes accessible design and features, such as color contrast, keyboard navigation, and screen reader compatibility, or better yet, knowing that its template designs are already WCAG compliant and ready to go!

Key Takeaway

Both sides of the user experience are crucial, and both web visitors and admins need a website that works well for them. When evaluating potential website platforms, find a solution that supports not only an excellent user experience for your community but also a streamlined, efficient, and secure admin experience for you and your team.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Connor has spent the last decade within the field of marketing and communications, working with independent schools and colleges throughout New England. At Finalsite, Connor plans and executes marketing strategies and digital content across the web. A former photojournalist, he has a passion for digital media, storytelling, coffee, and creating content that connects.