As customers web design needs turn towards content management systems, web designers are faced with new challenges. Today’s site owners need to learn how to blog, tweet, update their own pages, and keep a site live with fresh content. This often turns into a time consuming process for the designer. A customer’s learning curve can become a real cash-flow sink by increasing the time it takes to get a site up and running.
The solution is to make small training movies of screen actions. These training videos can increase revenue both by saving the designer time and in customer appreciation.
Learn to Update a Website
Webpage design is challenging for most site owners because making a page display well on a computer screen has very different requirements than making a printed page. Customers are used to the printed page and have difficulties making the adjustment. Unlike a printed page which prints out and stays in a fixed size, shape and color forever, a webpage is always displayed in a fluid medium. There are thousands of monitor types from giant TV displays to tiny handhelds. Web pages need to look good blown up on a giant screen or small on a computer pad or phone. On top of that, every screen renders colors differently and each computer will have a set number of fonts it can display.
New site owners invariably want to use fonts and spacing on their web pages the same as they do in their word processing program. Though this can be managed with strict CSS rules, each customer will need to be taught now to handle the new medium.
Website menus can also be difficult for new owners to understand. In most content management systems, simply creating a page does not add it to the menu. The customer makes a page, and then feels like it gets lost. Customers need to learn how to create menus, place them on the page and add links to pages in the right locations.
Images are the final challenge. Web pages look like they are running on a person’s local computer. It’s right there, after all, showing up on the computer screen. This little perception makes it difficult for a beginning site owner to understand that they have to upload all images from their computer to the server that is hosting their site and then add it to a page. This usually takes several steps that can be confusing. And then, the ultimate challenge with images is learning how to resize them on the customer’s available software.
A Video is Worth a Thousand Training Sessions
When I sit down with a customer to teach them how to manage their website, I invariably go too fast. There is so much for them to learn that it quickly becomes overwhelming. We both quickly reach brain-overload and don’t have a good time. Teaching customers through personal sessions does not give satisfactory results.
The solution is to create small videos by capturing my screen with recording software as I explain each task. I then upload the videos to a protected location in their site, and they can watch it as many times as necessary until they learn each task. They can ask me questions over email and get quick answers through a new video. If they only do menus twice a year they are going to forget it each time, but it doesn’t matter. With their videos, they can go back whenever they need and remember each step.
Screen recording software is available online for very reasonable prices. I bought a simple screenshot program from DeskShare called “My Screen Recorder.” It’s not fancy, but it captures my screen and my voice so I can show and explain at the same time. This article is not an endorsement of that particular software as it is the only one I have tried, and I cannot offer any comparison.
Short Movies for Each Task
I find it best to create short movies for each little task. There are two reasons for this:
- So the customer can quickly find the step they need without watching through a long recording.
- To keep file sizes small so the movies upload and play quickly.
It is critical to label each movie clearly using the customer’s language. One customer might understand what a “hyperlink” is, while another needs a label that says, “How to click and go to another page.”
Use YouTube for Visibility
I use the Drupal content management system. In Drupal, many tasks are going to be the same for each customer. I use YouTube to post these typical videos publically. This saves me time because I don’t have to make a movie on understanding links for each customer, and I can quickly stream the YouTube videos on the customer’s site making it easy for them to watch.
An added bonus in using YouTube is that it gets my name out as a web designer who can help customers edit their own websites. All these things add up to additional revenue over time.
Connie Delaney - Connie Delaney writes from Salmon, Idaho where she is a web designer, occasional funny girl, and Dances of Universal Peace leader.
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