To use a CMS or not to use a CMS – that is the question

To use a CMS or not to use a CMS – that is the question. I know it seems like a no brainer doesn’t it. A few months ago I would have vehemently yelled “hell yes build the site in a CMS and give your client the power to update their own content”. It’s definitely a great way of giving structure, workflow and a suite of tools for you as the developer. I was thinking that in most cases you’d be silly not to have one if you were able to implement it. But now I am not so sure it’s always a good idea.

There is a huge selection of very good open source content management systems out there to choose from so you don't need to develop your own.

The amount of clients that we have that have opted in to the CMS and pay the extra charges in order to save in the long run, but then do not make the effort to actually update the content on the site is quite incredible. What’s more, no matter how hard we lock down the styles, implement strict style guides and keep it as simple as possible, some clients still seem to have an amazing ability to somehow manage to create content that is unbelievably dreadful.

I think sometimes the fact you don’t need not to have any technical knowledge to update content, which is the main selling point of the CMS, is actually not a good thing. It would be good also to have some small amount of design ability – the site is a visual medium after all – shouldn’t the person updating the site at least know that pink text on a black background makes you want to poke your own eyes out? And inserting 5mb images may be celver because they did it themsleves, but all of a sudden the phone is ringing because their server limit is up and their new shiny web pages keep crashing. Where does the training stop?

A CMS can often help to increase user experience and provide a great business tool for your clients, or it can just become a big expensive waste of time and still produce a lousy result.

Don’t get me wrong I am still all for implementing a CMS when it’s appropriate. And for my part, especially on larger sites, it often actually makes the process from a development perspective a lot easier. But I definitely think you need to guide clients through the first few week of running the site on the CMS. Training them up and leaving them to it is not good enough. Providing some basic design skills and file optimisatiopn skills may be necessary too. Push them to add and update content more than they think they need to, just to get into good habits and learn the how to use the CMS on their own site properly.

If your client is not realistically going to make the effort to update the site, maybe you could offer alternatives for keeping content fresh like RSS. Or build it in the CMS if it’s easier but don’t actually enable the functionality. Or maybe am I just ranting as the victim of one too many tacky clipart images being put into my (previously) lovely sites.

Stakeholders, goals, and covering your arse

I just got sent this brilliant little parody of the creative and development process involved in redesigning the Stop sign. It made me laugh, but it also rang so true that it made me a little uncomfortable. I think it does an excellent job at pointing out the dangers of not nailing down your project plan, and more to the point, your project goals, before you start your build.

I would stop at this?

A project is usually considered a success if the requirements of the stakeholders are fulfilled. It’s true. Who else is going to give you grief over it? When starting a new project, you need to determine who these stakeholders are before you do anything else. A stakeholder is anyone who has a vested interested in the end product. Along with the project sponsors, the project team, content contributors, end-users, managers, and financial controllers can all be stakeholders. Nothing derails a project like a stakeholder being included late in the piece – they almost always want to stick their oar in and bugger it all up.

It’s happened to me a few times, or should I say, I have let it happen to me a few times. I have worked on a stop sign! (…metaphorically speaking). People who for one reason or another weren’t originally considered important in terms of defining the goals of the site, are included into the mix at a later date, and understandably they usually try to make some impact on the project. And as your profit margin diminishes, you are left sitting there whimpering, “I am a good person – why is this happening to me?” Step one of any new project is to make a full list of the stakeholders, and get it signed off by the sponsor.

When you are making your project plan it is important to make sure your stakeholders have as much input as possible to get clear list of goals to form the basis of your plan.

Ensuring the goals of the stakeholders are defined, realistic, documented, and then managed, will help you avoid leaving yourself open to… scope creep (*shudder*). Also, in making this list you will have to resolve any conflicting goals amongst these stakeholders. Better to do it now that half way into your build. You’ll also gain a decent idea of what criteria will be used to judge the success of the project. Once these goals outlining what is expected at the end of the project have been finalised, then get that signed off too.

Now that you’ve got the goals for the project nailed down, you can push on and write your deliverables, and development timeline, sort out your project team, and all that other fun stuff, knowing that as far as requirements go, your arse is covered.

5 tips for quickly Spring cleaning your website

It’s been a long winter here and after months of eating chips on the couch watching movies, I have decided to get fit for summer. I was just at a spin class before, and in between thinking I might actually be sick and pass out, I thought now might be a good time to quickly whip our company website into shape as well. A Spring clean if you like.

Here’s my 5 tips on how to quickly Spring clean your website and freshen it up without undergoing a whole redesign.

1. Opening Paragraph of your home page. If it says “Welcome to our company, please have a look around our site” give yourself a slap. They know it’s your company and they already are looking around your site. How about you tell them what you do! Much better to lead with  “Our company is based in this town and we specialize in this, this and this.” It will help your search engine rankings and it will let users know straight away if they should go any further into your site. If your company has added a service or slightly changed it’s focus, be sure to reflect that early on in your content.
2. Our People  Section – Your most important asset are your people. Make sure your new staff are added promptly and staff who have left are taken down.
3. News Section – do you have a news section – when was it last updated? Time to get honest with yourself, are you going to make the effort to stay on top of it or is it just too hard. Or is there no news!  If the content is over a month or two old – it’s not news any more. Archive the news and get rid of that section, because it is just making your company look like nothing ever happens there.
4. Images on the home page. Well – images site-wide actually, but especially if you have static images on the home page that could be freshened up, do it. It makes a huge visual difference and gives users a sense of things happening within your company.
5. Check your links. Content may have been moved or links to external sites might now be irrelevant or pointing to pages that are no longer there.  Make sure there are no dead links on your site – that is a bad look. It’s also bad for your SEO – so get it sorted now.

That’s it. And unlike my spin classes, it won’t take very long at all to get a good result.