handing off template-based design to non programmers
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- Erin Courtenay
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 48
- Thanks: 0
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I've been managing site development for small businesses and nonprofits for about 10 years, not for a lot of sites but enough to get familiar with RocketTheme and joomla. But this fall I've found that I need more coding skills than ever due to the demands of responsive templates.
This worries me as I prepare sites to hand over to clients that do not have any coding experience. My own skills are very minimal, although I'm comfortable dabbling. But since the establishment of CMS as a tool for inexperienced webmasters to manage sites with dynamic content, the expectation has become that site management can be done in-house by clients with very minimal coding skills.
In a recent example I was working with the Nuance Theme and began to realize once I started placing content that items which once upon a time would have been handled in separate modules (i.e. image gallery and staff bios) are now placed in one modular position with Gantry coding required to set the style (forgive me if my nomenclature is off, I'm not a programmer). This will be extraordinarily difficult for a client with zero coding skills to manage. It is almost as if we've gone back two steps in terms of the flexibility and ease-of-use of a CMS in order to accomodate responsive design.
Has anyone else had this experience? And how do you select templates that will be easier for non-programmers to manage?
Thank you for your thoughts!
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- Matt
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 22281
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- messin' with stuff
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Erin Courtenay wrote:
But since the establishment of CMS as a tool for inexperienced webmasters to manage sites with dynamic content, the expectation has become that site management can be done in-house by clients with very minimal coding skills.
That's an expectation that should be managed by the webmaster/site developer in my opinion.
Bleeding Edge web design will always require someone with a skillset beyond that of basic computer skills.
I manage my clients with the expectation that they can change/add/delete articles and posts.... I make it clear that most front page content... and other "sexy" content if you will... needs to be managed by myself or by someone with basic html skills... someone who handle editing things in a code view... things typically as simple as text and images which the average "IT Guy" at the company can likely handle.
If I have clients playing with things that could break the site Im extra careful with regular backups on those sites.
I would agree though that with the advent of responsive web designs has set some of the functionality people are accustomed to in most modern CMS'es back a bit... but again, if you want current/modern web design that's a price you'll always pay because once the CMS'es catch up there will be something new on the horizon.
/2 cents
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