Soon I hope to start work on my first website using Total CMS & Foundation. Whilst I prefer to learn on a live project I’m currently spending time watching Joe’s videos and I also just purchased the RW Course. So far I’ve only watched the introductory videos.
As part of any CMS website teaching customers (with varying levels of IT skill) how to use the online editing tools will be a big part of the project and I’m hoping and wondering if there are any resources available specifically for this without reference to building the website and admin pages in RW. I just want my customer to learn how to update and edit the various sections of the website I am designing in RW.
For a couple of customers who I sensed might struggle with the CMS portion, I just did a quick screen recording myself. It’s easy enough to do with QuickTime (though something like Screenflow has a ton more options) and then you can use their actual site as a reference.
I write step by step instructions for clients referencing their own CMS so that they can log in and everything’s where it’s supposed to be. Using Easy and Total also allows me to put help and support links inside the CMS in case they get into trouble.
I do similar to Rob.
I have a generic set of instructions in a accordion that give basic instructions on how to edit, Hipwig, markdown cheat sheet and explains the icons in the blog list (alt tag, featured etc.) This is in a partial that I use on all cms-admin pages and copy from project to project.
I put “hints” at the top of each section that explain what it is, and it’s purpose, suggested and max image size, and file type etc.
If they have a support plan there is a button to email for help.
I build admin pages with a lot of help in accordions, in text, and in pop-up windows. It all depends who’s going to be using it.
The issue I have is more basic. I have a hard time explaining what a CMS is to prospective customers. They seem to understand a blog, but a CMS is different. Joe has a demo site but clients think that there are going to be buttons on their pages that would be accessible to anybody to change content. I can repeatedly explain that there’d be an Admin page with a password on their site, but they remember what they see.
Joe, can you build a TCMS demo site with an Admin page that’s geared toward clients, not developers? Or a video on YouTube? It shouldn’t be too detailed about possible features that a developer could implement, but it should explain that it puts the client in control.
