The product is called Squiz Matrix CMS, a content management system (hereafter referred to as CMS) developed by Squiz, an open source software services company founded in Sydney, Australia in 1998. I was hired on a six month contract to give the CMS a fresh lick of paint whilst remaining true to its original UI.

It is important to note that no allowance was made for UX-related study. This meant I could only draw on the experience I had gained developing similar UIs in the past. Secondly, all screen elements were to remain in their original positions and nothing could be moved to another location. What this boiled down to was that I could only modify the CSS. There was a tiny allowance to modify the HTML, too, but only in extreme cases and only where absolutely necessary.

With that said, let’s take a look at the old UI.