Designing a CMS Platform to
Manage Digital Content
Stories
Web Application
UX/UI Design
Chapter 1: The Task & Problem
Design a CMS platform where editors can upload and manage digital content, submit it for approval, and make updates if needed. Publishers can review submissions, provide feedback, or approve content for publishing.
Editors struggle with complex upload flows and personalized thumbnail discoverability, while publishers need a more structured way to review, approve, or request revisions.
Chapter 2: Defining the Strategy and Users
Create an intuitive and efficient CMS that helps editors to upload, manage digital content while enabling publishers to review, collaborate, and approve submissions with clarity and speed.
Goal 1: Simplify Content Uploading
Introduce a step-by-step guided upload process for TV series and movies.
Enable background uploading so editors can continue working while files upload.
Goal 2: Making Review & Approval Process Easier
Provide clear content status updates (In Review, Approved, Needs Revisions).
Allow publishers to approve or send the content back with feedback directly.
Goal 3: Improve Thumbnail Tagging & Segmenting
Implement clear tagging system to improve thumbnail discoverability.
Allow editors to create audience segments and upload targeted thumbnails for better engagement.
Benchmarking & Research: Analyze direct or indirect competitors and market
App Flow: Map out editor and publisher workflows to clarify all possible connections and navigation.
Design & Prototyping: Come up with possible solutions, and prototype for testing
User Testing Plan: Clarify the points you want to test, split it into tasks to validate the ease of use.
Defining the persona;
Benchmarking;
Chapter 3: Exploring Solutions
After the research and defining strategy, everything about the screens started to find life.
Please see the flow, and live prototypes embedded below.
App Flow;
All the flow and screens;
Live prototype for 'Upload Digital Content' flow;
Live prototype for 'Review Digital Content' flow;
Chapter 4: Usability Testing Plan
Objective
To evaluate the efficiency, clarity, and usability of the CMS for editors by testing the upload, tagging, and review workflows.
The insights gathered will help improve the design and improve the overall user experience.
Hiring Participants
I’d conduct the usability test with 5 participants.
I’d conduct the usability test with the users who have these requirements:
Editors with experience in content management.
Users familiar with similar CMS tools (e.g., YouTube Studio, Vimeo).
During the test
Just before the test starts, I’d ask participants to continue with think-a-loud method. Simply, verbalizing their thoughts as they move through the user interface.
I find it reasonable to split the whole process into different tasks, and asking related questions just after that. So the participant won’t get lost.
Task 1: Please upload a TV series with multiple seasons and episodes.
Q1: How useful did you find the season-episode structure? What worked well, and what was challenging?
Q2: Was it clear that you could continue editing the form while files were uploading in the background?
Q3: Did you easily understand that you can upload multiple files at once?
Task 2: Please create 2 Audiences for this series, and upload their thumbnails.
Q1: Did you feel confident that your thumbnail choices would effectively reach the right audience? Why or why not?
Q2: How useful and relevant did you find the categorization of Genre, Mood & Theme, and Setting & Era?
Q3: How do these thumbnails with tags reach the audiences you create?
Did these tag categories help you accurately describe the audiences? Why or why not?
After the test
My aim here would be translate outputs, findings of the test into actionable design improvements.
I would:
Identify recurring pain points across participants.
Categorize issues by criticality (high / medium / low impact).
Define Success Rate for each task. (100% for Success, 50% for Partial Success, 0% for Failure)
Present findings to product managers and engineering teams.
Work with the product manager to prioritize fixes based on business impact.