Watch out for bad website developers!
- Sat, April 02 2011
- Filed under: Websites and web usability
There’s a must-read post over at Kivi Leroux Miller’s blog on how less than scrupulous website developers hurt nonprofit clients by making it hard to update websites, add fresh content and otherwise do things easily for themselves.
This is an important post, because all too often, nonprofits with bad websites hire someone to create a good site -only to learn their new site is impossible for them to maintain.
She specifically notes the importance of developers:
1. Using a content management system (meaning you can easily edit it yourself)
2. Teaching you to use the content management system
3. Creating places on your pages where you can easily add fresh content yourself
I cannot agree enough! When you hire someone to re-do your website, make sure you’re not becoming dependent on them, in perpetuity, to do anything online. It’s not supposed to work that way.
Comments
Public Policy Communicators of NYC has an excellent summary here: http://bit.ly/euqlqp of a recent presentation about low-cost ways nonprofits can do a website upgrade or add other features to engage visitors without a full redesign.