The Neos 9 UX Journey

After the Neos team delivered the new technology that powers Neos 9 and future versions, I’ll show which improvements we brought since Neos 9.1 to provide the daily Neos users a more intuitive and distraction free editing experience for what Neos is known & loved for and what the future will bring.

I’ll show the journey which led to the new UX features and improvements and how they will help the daily Neos users, and make it easier for agencies to highlight the advantages of Neos compared to other systems and why upgrades from older Neos versions are beneficial. Beside that we will also show some teasers for the UX roadmap and how the community can contribute to it.

Transcript

1. The Neos 9 UX Journey SEBASTIAN HELZLE - NEOSCON KARLSRUHE 2026
2. THE NEOS 9 UX JOURNEY ABOUT ME ▸ Neos core team member ▸ Consultant for Neos CMS projects ▸ 🏡 near Karlsruhe, Germany with my little family ▸ ❤ for baking, reading, gaming ▸ @sebobo on Github, Slack, etc.
3. “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to try and sell it.” — Steve Jobs
4. THE NEOS 9 UX JOURNEY AGENDA ▸ What you wished for in 2025 ▸ UX changes in Neos 9.0 & 8.4 ▸ The journey to Neos 9.1 and what changed ▸ What we want to 🛳 with Neos 9.2 ▸ My UX goals for Neos 9.3+ ▸ You can help ▸ Additional thoughts ▸ Questions
5. What you wished for in 2025
6. The UX wishlist NEOSCON 2025 ‣ Accessibility ‣ Search ‣ Drag & drop ‣ Inline editing ‣ Asset editing ‣ Validation ‣ Review ‣ Preview ‣ Workspaces & dimensions
7. What we shipped with Neos 9.0
8. SHIPPED IN 9.0 User menu in sidebar
9. SHIPPED IN 8.4 + 9.0 Quickly go back to editing from modules
10. SHIPPED IN 9.0 Property scopes Changes affect other dimensions
11. SHIPPED IN 9.0 Publish dependencies
12. SHIPPED IN 8.4 + 9.0 New icons
13. SHIPPED IN 8.4 + 9.0 Backend user filtering and sorting
14. SHIPPED IN 8.4 + 9.0 Named auto- created child nodes
15. SHIPPED IN 8.4 + 9.0 Tree collapse button
16. SHIPPED IN 8.4 - WIP FOR 9.X New dimensions dropdown
17. SHIPPED IN 8.4 + 9.0 Resizable inspector
18. The UX journey to Neos 9.1
19. THE UX JOURNEY TO NEOS 9.1 WHAT HAPPENED SINCE LAST YEAR ▸ April 2025 - Neos Sprint - Team decides to invest foundation funding into Neos 9 UX ▸ June 2025 - NeosCon - People ask for better UX ▸ July 2025 - Budget for improved editing UX granted ▸ October 2025 - Neos 8.4 release with several back ported improvements ▸ December 2025 - Neos 9.1 release with new editing UX ▸ April 2026 - Media Sprint
20. THE UX JOURNEY TO NEOS 9.1 WHAT WE WANT TO ACHIEVE ▸ Don’t distract users ▸ Keep context in focus ▸ Prevent accidental mistakes ▸ Reduce learning curve ▸ Let users be productive
21. What we shipped with Neos 9.1
22. SHIPPED IN 9.1 The new inline editing toolbar
23. SHIPPED IN 9.1 The new inline table editor
24. SHIPPED IN 9.1 The custom style selector
25. SHIPPED IN 9.1 The new context menu
26. SHIPPED IN 9.1 The positional aware add & insert content button
27. SHIPPED IN 9.1 The new link editor
28. SHIPPED IN 9.1 Drag & drop for content
29. SHIPPED IN 9.1 The content breadcrumb
30. SHIPPED IN 9.1 The improved fullscreen mode
31. SHIPPED IN 9.1 The content recovery module
32. SUPPORTED WITH 9.1 New inline image editing capabilities (via plugin) https://codeberg.org/PackageFactory/PackageFactory.CkInlineImages
33. What June & Neos 9.2 will bring
34. PART OF NEOS 9.2 Preview mode indicators
35. WIP FOR NEOS 9.2 Property scope indicator
36. WIP FOR NEOS 9.2 Workspace dropdown position
37. WIP FOR NEOS 9.2 Radical performance improvements for any workspace related actions 🚀
38. AVAILABLE FOR NEOS 8 + 9 Node variant selector https://github.com/Flowpack/Flowpack.NodeVariantSelector
39. AVAILABLE VIA FLOWPACK.MEDIA.UI Batch editing for assets
40. My UX goals for Neos 9.3 and beyond
41. The UX wishlist With finished & WIP topics NEOS 9.3 AND BEYOND ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ⚒ ⚒ ⚒
42. MY UX GOALS FOR NEOS 9.3 AND BEYOND New secondary inspector concept
43. MY UX GOALS FOR NEOS 9.3 AND BEYOND Smart node creation popup
44. MY GOALS FOR NEOS 9.3 AND BEYOND ON MY TODO LIST ▸ Core backend module component library ▸ Better UX, accessibility and DX
45. MY HOPES FOR NEOS 9.3 AND BEYOND UX IMPROVEMENTS I WOULD PRIORITISE ▸ Better validation in inspector & creation dialog ▸ Better review diffs ▸ Better document and content search ▸ Improved expired session handling in the UI
46. MY GOALS FOR NEOS 9.3 AND BEYOND MAKE CUSTOMERS & AGENCIES WANT TO UPDATE ▸ Deliver the best Neos UX so far ▸ Make people proud to show Neos capabilities ▸ Simplify updates ▸ Peak performance in backend & frontend ▸ Great dev experience
47. How you can become part of the UX journey
48. BECOME PART OF THE NEOS UX JOURNEY YES YOU CAN ▸ Buy long term supporter badges ▸ Feature funding & development support ▸ Contributions (concept, design, code, …) ▸ Tell us about your users difficulties ▸ Tell us about your vision for Neos 10, 11, 12, 13, …
49. Additional thoughts
50. Use the features you build - for real
51. Other interfaces are also not perfect
52. Agentic Coding - More time for UX?
53. Applause for all contributors and supporters!
54. THX! ▸ Talk to me about Neos UX ▸ Join #guild-ux on slack.neos.io ▸ Questions?