Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
I have had a good amount of success with a cheat-sheet style approach. just outlining basic things that they might want to do. Of course this goes also with my CMS that helps out a bit. I don't see why you couldn't make a simple one file admin for just editing pages online. So long as page content is dynamically included. If you use separate files and have something like include('header.htm'); nav, footer, etc on each page then you have the problem that they may delete or misplace these elements.Bert Doorn wrote:
Is it just me, or is this a common dilemma? Apart from abandoning standards compliance (not an option as far as I'm concerned), setting the site up in HTML4.01 Transitional and letting amateurs wreak havoc with Micro$oft <FONT>Plague, what options are there to design standards compliant sites, letting clients maintain them and still stay within web standards?
Idealistic, but I'd suggest "client education". Offer to take them through the absolute basics, emphasising the advantages of *not* doing things like setting fonts etc. Create a simple "cheat sheet" for them, outlining the process of updating pages (in their specific application), dos and don'ts, etc. As a good customer relations exercise, follow up after a month or so to see how they're doing, if they need any tuition or help, etc. Maybe you'll even get some repeat business, or a small trickle of "we made an update, but something went wrong...can you have a look?"
Again...idealistic. But I've managed to get this through on a variety of projects, and seems to work quite nicely in most cases.
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