A client recently hit me up about editing their website. They want to be able to create yellow boxes here, and green boxes over there, and now they need orange buttons and blue buttons, oh and I’d really like purple buttons just in case. I sense that the client often gets frustrated with not knowing HTML, but yet still wanting the control of being able to make any page look however they wanted.
Is having that much “control” over your website really a good idea? Are there any negative considerations to take into account before having a site that you can just do “anything” you want on every page?
The problem that I see with a client having lots of control to do absolutely everything they want is that they’ll end up with a mish mash website where nothing matches. There is no theme, no cohesive design.
Most of the time, when building a CMS (Content Management System) as a website, the client themselves don’t end up with a lot of control in the pages. They can log in the admin of the website, add an article, change text, etc. Usually they will have access to some kind of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, but this will only allow them to set headings, bold text, add links, maybe just maybe change the font.
The reason for this level of restriction isn’t to prevent the client from doing whatever they want on every page, but instead to control the pages so there is a uniformity throughout the site.
The template of the CMS needs to be uniform. All the pages need the same font in general. All the Headings are styled a certain way (you should have at least 3-4 different heading types), different elements should be styled all the same, blockquotes should be all similar.
All this is to ensure that your visitors can expect your site to appear a certain way no matter what page they are on within your site. If all your information type buttons are blue, and purchasing buttons are green, do you really want to throw in a red button? You chance confusing the visitors from the “expectations” you’ve created on the rest of your website.
Control is great and all, don’t get me wrong. But there are things in place that are their to protect you. If you really need some elements added, some capabilities thrown in, then I’m sure your developer can arrange it. But make sure you are asking for things that are really going to make sense, put yourself in your visitors shoes once and awhile and try to imagine their perspective.
