Having a blog or CMS that uses something like WordPress is a great way to easily publish content and is very easy for people who have no understanding of HTML, images or design but this power comes with a double edged sword.
On one hand, anyone can quickly upload images, video, and write text…even add some floating elements (picture on the left, picture on the right) without seeing any code. While this is great for most people, when something goes wrong (unclosed HTML tag) this can wreak all kinds of havoc on a site. I often get questions like “why is my entire blog in bold” or “what happened to my sidebar – it is now under the content. I even get people who look at my portfolio and email me about “you might want to fix this site because x is all messed up”.
While self publishing is great because it gives the writer all the power – it is also problematic because…it gives all the power to the writer. With this power – comes responsibility. If you want your business or personal image to be based on what people see on your web site – please take the time to learn some basics. Images look best at x size in this spot…this is how I bold something…etc.
As a web developer – I give my clients guidelines and do a lot of defensive programming to try and eliminate anything that I can foresee as being an issue – but please remember – while systems like WordPress easily allow you to publish your content – it also easily allows you to publish sloppy content.
There is a reason why most large companies have entire departments that control what goes out to the public with complicated review systems in place. So if you want to take advantage of something like WordPress, remember that you have all the control – both good and bad. If you see a site in my portfolio that looks skewed – know that the client would not allow me to hand that over to them like that. It is like that because they have complete control over the content. 😉
