It’s clear that websites are becoming increasingly large and complex, with both programmers and clients contributing to this trend. Programmers want to showcase their ability to create intricate projects, while clients desire content-rich websites filled with interactive, dynamic elements and animations.
Creating something complex isn’t inherently bad, but when such projects are undertaken without considering budgets, launch timelines, and post-launch maintenance, problems can arise that may be costly for both developers and clients.
Today, the development process is straightforward for me. From the multitude of websites I’ve created, I’ve learned how much to customize a WordPress theme.
Understanding the client’s profile is crucial in the planning stage of a website. Through interviews and multiple discussions, I can gauge how much programming work is necessary, how complex the design should be, how much the client wants to modify or add content after I’ve completed the programming, the knowledge level of the person responsible for these changes, and how much intervention or assistance they’ll need from me post-launch. All this information is very helpful when creating the website concept with a designer. I need to be able to say, “Yes, we can do this” or “No, this needs to be changed for the following reasons.”
Despite the many factors that can affect how complex a website can be (design, functionalities, market demands, etc.), we must always consider how our client will work with it. For this reason, we include a training stage in our methodology to help clients avoid the need to constantly rely on us or other programmers. A website should solve a client’s problem, not create one.
Even so, a website can have certain limitations when it comes to making changes. A minimum level of knowledge is necessary. I have many horror stories where clients had to come back to us for help with their websites. From issues arising from WordPress or plugin updates and security problems to unfortunate content changes on pages, I’ve seen it all. In the worst cases, everything had to be rebuilt from scratch. A website isn’t finished once it’s launched; its maintenance is ongoing, and without regular backups, you can lose everything very easily. I’ve had clients asking if we still had a complete backup of their site years after launch. Unfortunately, we cannot keep all deliverables for extended periods.
Our own INOVEO website is no exception. We have a very complex website with tens of thousands of lines of code written by me and hundreds of internal pages. Without regular backups, we would have lost it on numerous occasions. From cyberattacks to server issues, we’ve encountered all possible problems, but the site has always been back online within 24 hours. Any programming changes to our site come with a backup to revert immediately to the previous version if needed.
In short, a programmer must consider not only the client’s brief but also the client’s profile. For example, not all clients have a programmer on their team who can easily take over the site post-launch (this is quite rare). You can create a website exactly according to the requirements, but if it can’t be used effectively, you haven’t solved anything.
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