You Don’t Need Coding or Mark-up
Last Wednesday, I challenged the idea organisations are not the website designers’ job. To make that claim implies you don’t need coding or mark up. The expert is perhaps redundant. Whilst this is something many people accept it is still not widely understood.
Two reasons you may still need coding or mark-up
- There are occasions where you need coding (because you want your website to do something and there’s no suitable plug-in for it) or mark-up (because you want a special design for your site). This is when you might need the services of a web developer. They develop themes, plug-ins and platforms to their clients’ specifications. You will not need these services unless your site needs a distinctive appearance or you want to do something and cannot find a plug-in or application that does it.
- Even with a standard theme you may want to make a few changes and knowledge of html and css may be an advantage. Whilst you may not know how to do this yourself, it is a small part of the work of a web designer or consultant.
So, most of the time you don’t really need this expertise. Most of the time the issue is understanding your organisation’s needs and not the technical side of web design.
With a robust content management system (CMS) such as WordPress, with thousands of plug-ins, you can do pretty much anything. But like any other walk of life you need to choose to do the right thing and to learn how to do the right thing properly. These days the problem is choosing, from a number of viable options, the one that works for you.
Beware the Rush to a Solution
The temptation is to rush to a solution. Sometimes clients will approach a designer or consultant with a solution before they have described the problem. Often there is more than one solution and the rush to a favoured solution can prove to be a major disadvantage. You wouldn’t walk into a doctor’s surgery demanding he remove your appendix on the spot. You expect an interview where you discuss the problem before moving onto considering possible solutions.
A feature that a few years ago was too expensive or too difficult is easy today. For example, videos are relatively easy to make (perhaps easy to do badly but still easy to do). Many people walk around with the means to film live action videos in their pockets and never use it.
They don’t know that for a few hundred pounds they can download software that will enable them to edit a professional looking video from recordings. Of course there are pitfalls but they exist because the technology has advanced so much.
If you need a professional video you can still find businesses that will help you produce it. But for most purposes you can easily produce something usable.
So, you have many more options at your fingertips at lower costs. This raises many issues but my point is this: these issues did not exist a few years ago and for many the power and potential of working online is unexplored territory. They simply have no idea about what is possible.
To build a website without this awareness is a big mistake. There are still many designers out there who will do you a website and never mention the potential of modern content management systems. These designers are not interested in organisations and design to the abilities of usually one contact person. This is why so many organisations find their websites a liability.