Web Site Design: Admin Tools Go In "Phase Two" of Your Site Build
In consulting with a client yesterday about the build of his web site, I came across an issue that I'm seeing more and more often.: You're asking for whizbang stuff that you really don't need or might never use in your site. Any time you ask for functionality, you're usually asking for something customized and built from the ground up. As an example, in this particular site, the client had asked the programmer for the ability to change/edit pages … the ability to change the navigation bars … the ability to load their own photos in a photo gallery … the ability to load dates to a calendar of events … the ability to up[load media files in case they had a radio or tv interview done about them … and all of this required custom builds from the programmer.
In five minutes of questions with the client, I was able to remove 117 hours from the programmer's bid! That was nearly $12,000!
Here's the rule of thumb I've learned over the years: If you WANT special features that require the build of administrative tools for your use, first seriously consider how much you'll be using that feature vs. the 10 or 15 minutes it would take the programmer to load the same information for you. As an example, I have several real estate clients that I've created "SOLD Galleries" for in their web sites. Even if they sell 3 or 6 homes a month, it's going to cost them a lot less to give the address and photo to the programmers to resize, clean up and load in the SOLD Gallery than it is to create a custom admin tool that allows the already-busy client this function. I can't tell you how many sites I built with these whizbang features in the site that, then, became MY responsibility to manhandle because the client is too busy to operate his or her own administrative tools!
There's nothing wrong with thinking that you'll need greater access to functionality on your site - but build the site first WITHOUT that optional functionality. THEN, schedule your next construction phase - the one that includes one or more of these desired admin tools - for a 6-month review. Use your site for 6 months, and see if you're ever in a situation where sending something to a programmer on a repeated basis takes WEEKS of time or HOURS of work on the programmer's part to upload in your behalf. If this is the case, then it's definitely time to look at an admin tool as a solution. But in most cases, you're going to find that you never really needed the tool – and you'll have saved yourself thousands of dollars in programming.
In five minutes of questions with the client, I was able to remove 117 hours from the programmer's bid! That was nearly $12,000!
Here's the rule of thumb I've learned over the years: If you WANT special features that require the build of administrative tools for your use, first seriously consider how much you'll be using that feature vs. the 10 or 15 minutes it would take the programmer to load the same information for you. As an example, I have several real estate clients that I've created "SOLD Galleries" for in their web sites. Even if they sell 3 or 6 homes a month, it's going to cost them a lot less to give the address and photo to the programmers to resize, clean up and load in the SOLD Gallery than it is to create a custom admin tool that allows the already-busy client this function. I can't tell you how many sites I built with these whizbang features in the site that, then, became MY responsibility to manhandle because the client is too busy to operate his or her own administrative tools!
There's nothing wrong with thinking that you'll need greater access to functionality on your site - but build the site first WITHOUT that optional functionality. THEN, schedule your next construction phase - the one that includes one or more of these desired admin tools - for a 6-month review. Use your site for 6 months, and see if you're ever in a situation where sending something to a programmer on a repeated basis takes WEEKS of time or HOURS of work on the programmer's part to upload in your behalf. If this is the case, then it's definitely time to look at an admin tool as a solution. But in most cases, you're going to find that you never really needed the tool – and you'll have saved yourself thousands of dollars in programming.
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