These days nearly everybody wants, and even expects, to be able to make their own edits. I’m in full agreement. You shouldn’t have to call a web designer just to correct a typo in on your “about” page or anywhere else. That is why I have embraced the “content management system,” or CMS, as they are most often called.

In the past people who wanted to edit their own sites would have to have something custom programmed, or purchase software like Adobe’s Contribute to enable them to access their pages. Seems like now, every other month, I hear about a new CMS, or a a hosted CMS service, that gives people more options and flexility than ever when it comes to maintaining their website.

To be a “web designer” you need to wear several different hats, some of which don’t fit very well, and there is nary a party hat amongst ‘em. Yes, I do the graphic design of a page, but I’m also called upon to help clients figure out what they need to put on their pages, write content, edit photos, build the design in HTML/CSS, set up a content management system, make sure everything works together, and test out the system on a variety of operating systems and browsers.

Following site launch, there is a period of training clients on how to use their CMS, so they can make small changes to the site themselves. Some clients find the process intimidating, while others find it intoxicating, and end up getting drunk on the power it offers them over the appearance of the site.

Despite controls that will prevent clients from getting in over their heads, inevitably they will run up against something they want to do but can’t and I will have to give them more access. Flash forward to 3 months later and visiting the site can sometimes yield some unpleasant surprises.

A carefully crafted color palette may end up marred by a client wanting to creating some really eye catching headline for their text, and they somehow managed to make it bright blue on an otherwise neutral color palette. “Bigger” and “more colorful” are the two requests clients can get caught up with.

It can be a slippery slope, as one of my favorite YouTube videos, “Make My Logo Bigger Cream,” points out. When a client becomes particularly adamant, I ask them, “If you make everything super colorful and huge, then what is going to stand out?”

This usually gives them pause, and they generally back-off a little bit. But I digress. I was talking about content management systems, right? Yes, which is about giving clients control, because ultimately they are the ones who care the most about their own content. They are paying the closest attention to detail (one hopes).

I really like to give clients control of their own content, despite the risks of things breaking or looking funny sometimes. After all, I’m in the business of designing, rather than tinkering. I really don’t want to get paid to fix your typo. If I happen to be on your site and find it, yes, of course I will fix it.

For me the growth and popularity of content management systems is a godsend, and I’ve just found a service called Page.ly that will also maintain nightly backups of your site and keep the software updated, if you are on Wordpress. I will likely recommend it to some of my clients that would be suited to it.

So this brings up the next point, which CMS do I choose? Well, that depends. Do a quick Google search, and you will come up with maybe 10 that are popular, and more than a hundred all told. I have touted Wordpress on my own site and use it myself, but it’s not the only one out there, nor is it appropriate for everyone. For a small business, it can be very easy to learn and have lots of flexibility for those on small budgets.

It can be a pain in the ass to keep Wordpress sites and their respective plugins updated all the time. So when you multiply one site with, say 10 plugins, by 30 sites, and Wordpress gives you an update every few weeks, that’s a lot of updating. And, if you are someone like me, you’d rather be designing.

Since they didn’t have any complete projects yet, I suggested we use illustration to get the message across, and later they could update new pictures of their work. They wanted a Flash animation for conveying their most important concepts, and a framework they could keep updated themselves without much training, so I suggested Wordpress.

I designed the color palette of the site to go with updated colors on the logo, but after the site was built they decided to revert back to the original colors.

A more recent development was their desire to have their website contain dynamic pricing and apply their pricing structure to the current price of platinum and gold. I helped them come up with a formula that would allow them to input the fixed price information, and then the formula would be applied with the dynamic price of the day for gold or platinum. This way all the prices on the site would be current and it would save them time re-calculating prices at their desks.

In the bridal section there is the option to view rings in groups of four, one at a time, or all at once on a long page. In addition, the side has video and a blog, as well as searchable database of local jewelers that carry their product.

On the detail pages, each ring has a quote associated with the name, to enhance the unique quality of each piece. In addition, alternate views of the rings are shown in thumbnail size at the bottom of the page.

This site also has a custom admin page where the client can upload new ring photos, descriptions and pricing, and re-arrange the order in which they appear on the site.

Update: This client wanted to make their site more search engine friendly, so we reduced the size of the Flash animation on the home page, and added quite a bit more text and links. Here is the updated page design.

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