Web Design basics HELP!

ldepty

ldepty

New Member
Hey All,
I'm a recently graduated student that has been asked to create a website for a friend. She is a yoga instructor that wants to have images and information about her classes...

I was trained in the adobe suite and would often use photoshop / dreamwever however my friend wants to be able to edit the site herself in the future... adding news/ images/ upcoming events
I was just wondering what sort of programs/ sites I should look in to so that I can design a nice site for her that she would be able to edit it afterwards.

ALSO

I realized that I have no idea what the usual procedure is when you design a site for somebody!
If for example I create a site in Dreamweaver for a client... what happens when they want to update the information..?. am I supposed to do it and bill them again?
or is a contract put in place at the commencement of the work listing how long i will be responsible for the site?

this question has been bugging me and it would be great to get some advice from some web designers out there

thanking you all in advance

Guy.
 
You can either charge a fee for updates or you can use a CMS (Content Management System) to allow her to do her own updates. Assuming you can read, write & edit code, the CMS is the easiest option for you but does you out of future earnings. Google 'CushyCMS', its the most basic of the content management systems so good for beginners.
 
Hi Guy

Basically you need some kind of CMS (Content Management System) to base the website on if your customer wants access to update all the pages in the website.

The platforms you could choose are too numerous to mention here but include names like Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla etc.

There are online services such as; Simple content management system :: Simple CMS that can provide basic CMS functionality for a handful of pages. They are limited though.

You can offer maintenance/update contracts if you don't want to go down the CMS route and it can represent extra income after a site is built. However, don't underestimate how annoying it is when you are in the middle of coding your next project and an existing customer comes back with a load of updates to do. That's why we only offer CMS websites and clients love it.

Hope that helps.
 
bigdave said:
You can either charge a fee for updates or you can use a CMS (Content Management System) to allow her to do her own updates. Assuming you can read, write & edit code, the CMS is the easiest option for you but does you out of future earnings. Google 'CushyCMS', its the most basic of the content management systems so good for beginners.
Click to expand...

Cross-post... Same advice :icon_thumbup:
 
Apart from I was posting a combination of my limited knowledge and what you told me a couple of weeks ago! lol
 
thanks!

Thanks for all your advice guys it was really helpful!
Exactly what I was looking for
:icon_biggrin:
cheers,
Guy
 
most people who want to use a cms struggle to actually use it and then pay the dev person to deit it for them anyway
 
byronc said:
most people who want to use a cms struggle to actually use it and then pay the dev person to deit it for them anyway
Click to expand...

I think that depends on the CMS (and the person). I've not encountered anyone yet who can't use ModX to edit their website once completed.
 
Web Design

+1 for Wordpress - but people generally recommend what they know so beware of biased advice! In my opinion pick a popular cms that has a nice user friendly admin panel, has plenty of plugins and a large online community behind it and then get to know it intimately. I've heard of people talking about limitations of a CMS but often enough it's because they haven't got to know it well.

If you need a CMS which is very flexible then Drupal is well thought of but it has a steeper learning curve and what I'd call a "developer's" cms.
 
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