One of my biggest learnings when designing for websites and applications that are content managed is around control.
The level of control provided by a system should be related to the proficiency and experience of the people intended to use it.
So in other words beginners do best with a reduced amount of control, while experts do best with greater control. A great example is when children learn to ride a bike. At the beginning training wheels are helpful in reducing the difficulty of riding by reducing the level of control. In this case eliminating the need to balance. This allows the child to develop the basic skills safely. But if a more experienced rider comes along the training wheels only get in the way.
May times we seem to concentrate on our end user and their goals, we also incorporate business goals and technical limitations but when we make the decisions to make our solutions content manageable do we stop to think about our content editors? The people tasked to maintain the integrity and longevity of the system? Have we chosen the right platform for their level of experience? What kind of design and development support do they have access to?
Sometimes when you’re so focused on creating the perfect combination of text or visual that is on brand and intuitive you fail to ask the people intended to manage your creations if they have both the ability and the capacity to select the perfect image, edit it in the right way, resize and save it for the web?
In summary consider what elements can be manageable and what may need to be locked down. Don’t design something that is hard to maintain. More importably don’t design something that is hard to maintain for other people. Because before long it will be broken by someone who’s level of experience is exceeded by the amount of control they have been given.