Open Source, of Course?

We make a lot of joomla / wordpress templates for clients - open source CMS provide an amazing foundation to build beautiful & functional sites, not to mention the fact they can be fully loaded with apps and mobile optimisation. The future of the web it seems is bright, functional and super smooth - however it’s not all that simple.

We have just won a job from a client who employed a 'joomla expert' to upgrade his website – 4 months later, the site not even close to completion and 93 media have been asked to step in and clear up the mess.

To give you a quick idea - the graphics are dull, have not been optimised and as for the images, they are mostly pulled from google image search or have i-stock watermarks on them. The layouts, modules and plugins are not set up correctly and the back end has 26 - yes 26!!! - unused coms / mods & plugins, making it hard to navigate and creating conflicts galore. Finally the database is not backed up and is lacking modules such as mod_rewrite & zlib.nSo – our client asked to see some of our work and if we could create the relevant modules to fit a specific set of functions - we had a meeting, discussed needs, showed our portfolio and the job is ours – the usual business process. I asked him how he had managed to get someone so lame, why had he (as a successful business man himself) not seen it coming - I articulated my question a little more subtly than that, however those were the basics “We needed a website upgrade, so did a few Google searches, made a few calls – then someone in the office said a friend of friend was a joomla expert, a local firm who wouldn’t charge much - I was interested straight away, to have a local guy sounded great both logistically and in terms of cost - actually there was something in me that wanted to help a local business as well – so in he came and he talked a lot of jargon that I didn’t really understand, all wanted was a new site that looked great and didn’t cost the earth it sounded to me as if he knew what he was doing so on he went” Fair enough I said to my client, that to be honest is the spec I usually receive for web developments – when did alarm bells start ringing? “that’s a hard question to answer really, I mean we just let him get on with the job – he was sending us updates about how he had installed this and that - also the imaging was looking great - so we didn’t think there was a problem – it was only really after a couple of months (the guy said it would take 6 weeks max) that we started asking how long before the site is complete – he was making a lot of excuses and would not commit to a meetings which is never a particular good sign.

Eventually we had a meeting to examine progress - it was all a bit of a mess really, the site was nowhere near finished and the images were all downloaded from Google or istock previews, the functionality we had specified wasn’t working – it was more of a fudge than a solution. After a bit of Q & A, the guy basically admitted that he was out of his depth – he had made a couple of small joomla sites and put some blogs together but that was it – the functionality we required was over his head ”It raised to me an interesting comparison – recently there have been many complaints that social media is destroying mainstream journalism, what with their twitters and facebook walls et al - the true journos are being pushed out of the market in favour of free & always updating news elsewhere – Could a comparable issue be happening here? – open source CMS is an amazing development that has without doubt made the web a better place, however it does give those not sufficiently skilled the idea they are tech masters, the new mark zuckerberg and overall web gods – our latest client came to us for this exact reason.

Whilst it could be argued these are the sour grapes of a web designer facing more competition, I would say it’s more about experience working with businesses and developing for them, not just developing because you can – open source allows the blogs & fan sites etc. to look a thousand time better than they would have done 5 years ago and that is a good thing – it will allow developers to make more interesting and unique extensions, so our overall web experience is improved.nHowever, like the journos there are times when a hobbyist will not cut the mustard – to get a website that looks professional and functions exactly as specified, it needs to be built by someone who makes a living from it – a company or even an individual who can bring all of the required elements together and create a website that is inline with your own ethos and goals.

So, in summary – make sure you know your developer – if there is jargon you’re not sure about, ask for an explanation - ask if an app you're being sold will really help your business or product - developers & professional agencies - like 93 Media ;) will be more than happy to provide answers - in fact, any agency worth its salt should positively enjoy providing you with the answers, to the most simple or complex of questions. Finally, find out the costs – you might just be surprised at the value on offer.nAs for 93 Media we offer more than just web development – we create bespoke graphic designs, use all our own photography and images and offer some of the best support you could ask for - please feel free to contact us for a chat about your website...