Rick Hurst Web Developer in Bristol, UK

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Category: workflow

Sub-optimal web content workflow used by many agencies

I’ve worked at a fair few agencies in my time, and despite most agencies now using content management systems as standard, the content population and revision workflow is usually sub-optimal:-

  1. Designer inputs the content into a photoshop file
  2. PNG or PDF of the document is signed off by the client, or amends requested, which the designer deals with
  3. Developer copies the content into the CMS (they may need to create some custom content-types or templates to make this work)
  4. If the content needs to change – the designer is asked to change the photoshop document, and back to step 2
  5. At no point will the client touch the CMS, or entertain the idea of a few days training in basic HTML or markdown*

Yes, I think we can all see a flaw with this workflow – no need to point out how things could be done differently in the comments!

* I don’t care if your CMS has a really good WYSIWYG editor – it’s either too limited or too powerful, so an untrained editor at best will never really get the result that they want, at worst do some real damage!