Considerations when planning a modern dynamic website.

We make a lot of websites, that's our job, and what we find there are considerations for a successful project that are not directly related to the design and build. Because they are not directly in the spotlight, but supporting in the stands, they can easily be overlooked much to the detriment of the client once the site is signed off and out in the wild.

Now this is totally understandable, I don't really consider the ease of parts, and maintenance when buying a car. If it looks nice, feels good and goes 'yim yim' I'll be happy.... until it breaks down, requires fixing or requires constant attention. Needless to say I'm a little more careful when buying a car now.

A new website is also a significant investment, and it's likely to be with you for a long time. And that's why we try to explain these considerations when requesting a site. Whilst this increases the scope of the project, thus ambushing more of a client's headspace, stepping back and addressing these important factors makes for much smoother sailing in the future.

Now when we think about the full scope of a project with regard to the build, we often break it down internally to 3 main areas.

1. The Hosting Service.
2. The Website itself.
3. The content and management of the site. (sometimes extending into SEO, and Social)

Generally, 2 is given all the focus, because that is what is in front of your face, but once you have something built, where it is built and who is looking after it, impacts the final product greatly.

An analogy for this, would be us building a house.

So let's start with:

Hosting

To put all the facilities, commodities etc we want in the house, we need to make sure the environment is there to do so.

If we want blistering fast internet, we need to be near somewhere with broadband. If we're putting in a pool then we better have a large garden etc, and permission to do so. The hosting service is giving us this environment, and you don't want to have to apply for planning permission every time you want to make a change to your house.

Therefore it is worth having a host specifically for the site you're intending to build and know it's going to work, rather than using a service you have already that may not fit your needs.
What worked for the site that was built 2 years ago, might not work so well today. And there are always things we can't foresee, like maybe it was built on a ancient Native American burial ground! Now because you aren't building on the site it isn't directly clear how this affects you.
Although if we asked some people to build our swimming pool on the side of a sand dune you can get the picture. And like ancient burial grounds in Steven King novels, these always create trouble for the people building your site, and finally the poor people who move in.
So making the hosting part of your discussion with the development company pre-empts any late trauma, haunting or manifestations.

The Website

Modern websites are significantly more complex than they were back in ye olde days, and especially those ones allowing you to update and change everything yourself. Content Management Systems need looking after and often require updates and security patches.
This is something you of course can do yourself, but just like opening up your laptop in order to upgrade the parts, you're likely to have a lot of trouble if things go bad.
If anything is dynamic, and you are able to change it, it means if it gets corrupt or broken there is no current version. So when looking to commission a modern dynamic site, awareness that it will need the system updated, and backed up as it changes is important. Normally when planning the website the focus is look, feel and how the experience itself is inline with the project's goals. However lurking beneath the surface, are what makes the site tick. We (Rain) break things all the time, but we also just fix them (that's developing), and whilst the systems we build guard against this, anything that lets you change things, means there is a chance it can go wrong.
Driving a car is fairly controlled, but even they break, especially if you drive with the handbrake on! Your site is not that much different. But if there is a problem you'll want it fixed quick. And if some clever people have found an easy way to steal your car, you'll want to change those locks fast. Generally the more complex something is, there are more things that can have problems. Therefore having this in mind when deciding the site's functions and discussing this with your web developers can help you avoid anything having to manage anything unwanted, once it's live.

Content Management

Lastly, is the case of managing the content of the site itself. With the whizzy new site, you can update, edit, and blog, and fire news out to Twitter, Facebook and beyond.
When the site has great new functionality and features we need to make use of them! It's what you paid for after all. If a site has blogging features, events system or with e-commerce that has a product catalogue, it needs some loving.
Again back in ye olde days, this is what people paid the web peeps to do in code.
With content management systems letting you do this yourself, it often comes a shock of quite how demanding it is. Updating content, still requires clicking through your site's admin and writing out what you want to say. We still need all the correct images, cut appropriately, and relevant fields input, saved and checked.
People need to know how to do this, and it isn't an afterthought. You are filling the role of what you would have been paying a web designer to do for you. The system reduces the need for technical ability to do so, but it certainly takes a similar amount of time. The point being, that the management of a dynamic site is a role for someone or team to handle.
The biggest problem here is that if this is neglected, by the time the site is launched, it will rapidly become out of date. News from 3 months ago, unless positioned well, just looks like you don't do any business. An awesome new e-Commerce site waits in web limbo, until the product content has been entered so it can be launched.

To Sum it up

Addressing these likely scenarios before or at the start of the project, and taking them very seriously will save a big headache later down the road.

These areas are something we at Rain bring up with our clients to pre-empt any futures woes. As we do this all the time, obviously we know how these issues will affect the final outcome, and we don't expect that you would. We know because we do it.
We also recognise that building websites is a big task, and so the focus is always on the actual site itself. However these areas, not directly related to the design and build are very important to consider in the overall planning for a successful project, and hopefully by making people aware of this from this post, it'll help everyone with a smoother sailing online existence.