How do we design a CMS theme system that satisfies widely differing user personas at once? Is it possible to provide excellent user experiences for frontend developers, backend developers, and UI users at the same time? How do we balance flexibility, complexity, security, and other factors?

We will explore this problem space from several different angles:

How popular CMSes prioritize different user personas

Why the themer experience is more difficult in a CMS than a framework

How to evolve without losing backwards compatibility

Why security is an important part of designing a theme system

How we can improve the themer experience in the future

After an introductory analysis we will open the floor to a discussion of these problems and potential solutions.

Slides: bit.ly/goldnola2016