Meet the Utility Belt: Our Answer to Streamlined, Instinctive Content Production

I'd like to brag a little about our humble "utility belt". That was a term we used as a joke when we built it years ago, and it stuck. Think of Batmans belt of little tools. I'm not sure what other CMSs call them, if they have one, but I like the term "Utility Belt". It's just the little belt of frequently used tools that your producers need all the time, that they need to have as they browse the site.

I've used CMSs where the workflow for correcting a story looked like this:

1. Notice an error
2. Copy the story ID from the URL
3. Go to /admin
4. Seek out the search tool for stories
5. Enter the story search and paste the ID
6. Wait for a list of links to appear
7. Click the link for the story you want

In our case, it's one button. "Edit this Story", that a logged-in producer sees at the top of every single story, also talent stories as well if you are using them. This is what it looks like, I see at the top of this this site right now, because I'm logged in as an "producer".

It contains references to all the things you might need, if you are a producer. Not only is it one click to the story editor from the story page, and I'll also remind you that because our /admin requires no giant front-end package, it loads instantaneously. It queries the story from the DB, and prepares it for editing in under 300ms. Faster than the eye catches.

This is true of all the buttons here, "Edit Page" would take you to the page editor for the "story page template", and would be editable for a team member with "developer" privileges. It's not just easy, it's fast.