Why we built our own CMS

What Usable does

Usable is built on Payload and Next.js, two widely used open-source tools. That matters for one reason: nothing in it is a black box. The parts we didn't write are maintained by large communities, and the parts we did write are ours to fix.

Many sites, one platform. Each site has its own domains, pages, media, settings and team, but they all share the same code. When we fix something or add a feature, every site gets it.

Blocks, not a blank canvas. Pages are built from designed, tested blocks. Editors fill them in, reorder them and reuse them. The layout holds, because the block decides how it looks on a phone, not the person typing at six on a Friday.

SEO in the core. Titles and descriptions run through a site-wide template. Redirects live in the admin and resolve in one hop, so an old address goes straight to its new page. Sitemaps, canonical links and structured data are generated for every page. Before a site launches, a check crawls every page and every old address, and fails if anything is broken, missing, buried or slow to redirect.

Forms that only forward real enquiries. Every form submission is spam-scored before it reaches anyone. Clean messages are emailed on, and the rest are held in the inbox for a person to check.

Motion that's described, not coded. Any section can fade, reveal or count up as it scrolls into view. For anything more ambitious, an editor describes the effect in plain words and Usable writes it.

The unglamorous parts, built in

Most of what keeps a site healthy is dull, so it's the first thing to get skipped. We put it in the platform instead of on a to-do list.

Domains. Adding a domain shows exactly which DNS records to set, then checks whether they're right and says plainly when they point somewhere else. A www address and an old domain can both send visitors to the main address in a single redirect.

A log of every missed page. When a visitor lands on an address that doesn't exist, Usable records it. Real misses can be turned into redirects, so old links stop leaking visitors.

Drafts and history. Edits can be saved as drafts and checked before they go live, and earlier versions stay in the history. Nobody has to be brave on a Friday afternoon.

Type and colour that stay on brand. Each site has its own set of type styles and colours. Editors pick from those instead of inventing new ones, which is most of what keeps a site looking designed a year after launch.

This site runs on it

avant8.com is the first public site on Usable. Every page here is built from those blocks, and every address from our old WordPress site has a rule: it redirects in one hop to the page that replaced it, or says plainly that it's gone. Before we went live, the pre-launch check requested every page in the sitemap and every old address we know of, and passed.

Building it for ourselves first was deliberate. If something annoys us while we use it every day, it gets fixed before a client ever sees it.

What it isn't

Usable isn't for everyone. If you need a site this week on a small budget, a hosted builder is still a good answer. If you run a large content operation with an in-house WordPress team, stay where you are. Usable makes sense when you want a site that's designed properly, edited safely and looked after by people who know how it works.

It's also not finished. Platforms never are. We build on it every week, and every improvement lands on every site at once.

Where to see it

The platform has its own home at usable.cx. If you'd rather talk about your own site, our web design work for Salt Lake City businesses is the place to start.