Wanting it all

Content stuffing a website is, and always will be very VERY boring and takes a huge amount of time. So it would be better to just let the clients do it themselves, create new pages on the website, create the layout they want for it, manipulate the navigation, add custom made modules on the pages they choose, place any content anywhere: text, image, video,… .This way the web agency can focus on designing and building websites and web applications.
And don’t forget the money aspect for the clients, the less hours they have to pay the happier they will be (not so much for the web agency of course).
‘The Ultimate CMS’ is the utopia of designers/developers/web agencies and many users would love the freedom to add/edit/remove anything when managing their website and its content, the holy grail… . Of course that can’t be achieved and you will always have limits somehow but a few CMS try to be as open and flexible as possible.

What is seen can never be unseen
It often happens the web agency does the initial content stuffing of the website or even creates the content from scratch just to get the client started. The website looks and feels good, the work is done, the client receives the login credentials for the website’s backend, maybe gets some training to use it and here we go the job for the web agency is done. Because they are proud of their work and effort they put in, the website goes in their portfolio.

After a while the client decides it is time to update his website. He adds a news item, changes an image nothing mayor. But after a while the client gets more ‘creative’ and start making new pages, new layouts etc … .
And after a year or so it happens, you (someone from the agency we’re speaking of) arrive at the office in the morning and see one of the designers crying at his desk, as a good colleague you ask what is wrong and he shows you the website he designed a year ago and the following happens: You jump back at least 3 meter trying to exorcise the devils spawn on the screen while making some holy signs and spew out some Latin phrases in the hope it goes back to 7th layer of hell where it came from and stays there, screaming out “Oh my god my eyes are burning, the agony …. make it stop!!!”

Ok I admit, that might be a little theatrical but that’s about what happens in a designers mind when seeing the result of the “creative client”  or better known as ‘a designers worst nightmare’ at work. Which basically means he’s done everything you aren’t supposed to. Hideous images, the worst color combinations ever, underline bold italic fonts all over the place to highlight basically every word on every page because everything is so damn important, text cramped in spaces so tight you can hardly make out it’s text at all (because white space is for pussies) and page layout reduced to an idea that apparently only exists in your mind.

The “Oh crap” moment
After a short time you realize that same project  is still in your portfolio on your website and all potential clients can click on it,  just to find out how horrible it looks now. If all clients get this freedom to do whatever they want in their website’s backend you won’t have a decent portfolio left and the quality of your work will disappear because the happy editing clients ruin everything and potential clients aren’t going to be convinced of your work and you as an agency/designer/developer can kiss that prospect goodbye.

What can you do
Giving too much power to the user is very very bad and in restricting the client/user in what he can do on his website is protecting him from himself. Chances are he will be complaining when trying to edit things that you just won’t allow. And as for how far these restrictions need to go there is a thin line between being to open or to closed. As a web agency you don’t want to receive a call/email from your client every time a letter on their website has to change, of course they can charge for it and they will gladly do so but an agency would rather spend their time and resources on making new projects instead of some dull content changes.

So what can you do to prevent this from happening to you (as an agency/developer/designer)?

Make changes to the CMS:

• Limit the amount of font/highlight colors to the colors of the branded website including  hyperlink colors
• Limit the amount fonts and font sizes available
• Create fixed white spaces, line heights, …
• Limit the freedom in creating new pages, create templates with fixed page layouts
• Limit more…

Different approach to your portfolio:

• Instead of using live websites to link to, alternatively you can use static images only. It’s less interactive but keeps you safe.

Not all problems will disappear this way but it could help.