Website Creation for Dummies?

[kingstuart]

One problem with that idea is you're now beholden to the people who built your site for all future maintenance, even something as simple as updating a telephone number. Especially if they used tools such as HTML and CSS generators to put together the fancy pages. Sure, you can view the HTML and CSS in your browser and even download them to your computer, but making a change to them would be a nightmare.

So what do you do when said company goes out of business? In the web world that's an all too common problem.

Ask for a copy of the files - you will have paid for them. I don't see a website like this needs to be anymore complicated than a few static HTML pages. It won't be difficult to change. It will certainly be much easier than learning HTML, CSS etc, but most importantly a professional web designer is going to make a far better website than someone who's never even written any HTML.

DNS and hosting is all pretty simple, and most hosts provided easy to use and well documented processes to do everything.

If the above scenario should ever occur, I'll personally offer to sort it out.

 

[Blue Mountain]

Ask for a copy of the files - you will have paid for them. I don't see a website like this needs to be anymore complicated than a few static HTML pages. It won't be difficult to change. It will certainly be much easier than learning HTML, CSS etc, but most importantly a professional web designer is going to make a far better website than someone who's never even written any HTML.

Which files? If the professional builds the website using a proprietary tool, he can give you the input files but they will be of no use to you if you don't have a copy of said tool needed to re-create the output files. The output files are freely available on the internet, but they may not be maintainable. Computer generated HTML and CSS can be incredibly hard to make sense of.

DNS and hosting is all pretty simple, and most hosts provided easy to use and well documented processes to do everything.

If the above scenario should ever occur, I'll personally offer to sort it out.

True for web professionals; not so much for a logistics person looking to open up a coffee shop. Which is actually a good reason to engage the services of someone who's familiar with the territory ...

 

[gabeygoat]

Design-wise, I wish all restaurant owners read this:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/restaurant_website

 

[kingstuart]

Which files? If the professional builds the website using a proprietary tool, he can give you the input files but they will be of no use to you if you don't have a copy of said tool needed to re-create the output files. The output files are freely available on the internet, but they may not be maintainable. Computer generated HTML and CSS can be incredibly hard to make sense of.

The files you'd expect from a small website, a few HTML files a CSS file and a few images.

If the person your paying to design you a site is going to use tools like this you'd be as well using the free template driven stuff many hosting providers offer. If I was paying someone to design me a website I'd expect them to design me a website, I wouldn't be expecting a someone to be doing it via some CMS.

True for web professionals; not so much for a logistics person looking to open up a coffee shop. Which is actually a good reason to engage the services of someone who's familiar with the territory ...

Filling in a form is way less complicated than learning HTML and CSS.

 

[Fishstick]

The files you'd expect from a small website, a few HTML files a CSS file and a few images.

If the person your paying to design you a site is going to use tools like this you'd be as well using the free template driven stuff many hosting providers offer. If I was paying someone to design me a website I'd expect them to design me a website, I wouldn't be expecting a someone to be doing it via some CMS.
.

CMS's and website design are not mutually exclusive, as CMS's by definition are meant for managing the content of the website, and not the design. Design is about more than just CSS, and whether or not to use a CMS - and which one, if it is necessary - is just part of the design specs.

 

[kingstuart]

CMS's and website design are not mutually exclusive, as CMS's by definition are meant for managing the content of the website, and not the design. Design is about more than just CSS, and whether or not to use a CMS - and which one, if it is necessary - is just part of the design specs.

CMS can be used for the management and/or the creation of websites.

There will be nothing complicated about altering some text on one of 5 or 6 static HTML pages, computer generated or not. If as I responded too it's a case of changing a phone number.