Website "Training" Meeting - Questions to Ask
January 21, 2020 8:22 AM Subscribe
The company I work for commissioned a new website, which has been completed, and the agency that built the site is having a couple of us meet with them for a website training, which was explained to me as being given a tour of the site and instructions on updating it (it's a Wordpress site). This is my first time attending a meeting like this, and I'm wondering what would be good questions to ask and things to focus on.
I have had no involvement in the redesign, and my position is unrelated to the website, but I'm being invited because I have experience with building Wordpress sites. (I am familiar with Wordpress and have built a few themes from scratch, but only as a personal hobby and haven't done any web design professionally.) I'd like to be able to contribute useful questions and input, and would like to come prepared. Thanks for your help!
I have had no involvement in the redesign, and my position is unrelated to the website, but I'm being invited because I have experience with building Wordpress sites. (I am familiar with Wordpress and have built a few themes from scratch, but only as a personal hobby and haven't done any web design professionally.) I'd like to be able to contribute useful questions and input, and would like to come prepared. Thanks for your help!
I build websites with my partner as my profession and we conduct a lot of these WordPress tutorials / walkthroughs.
This is how we structure the meeting, and I've noted where your expertise and questions might be helpful.
1. Intros
- We like to get a sense of people's experience with WordPress so we can target the tutorial to their level of expertise
- YOU: If you're the one person in the company with the most WP experience, you might be the go-to internal question-answerer :) So mention your level of experience, plus any holes in your familiarity with WordPress you might have
2. Project Overview
- Especially if not everyone was involved directly in the redesign, we'll give some high-level goals of the redesign and how they were addressed
3. Page-by-Page Walkthrough
- We typically walkthrough each page module-by-module, bit-by-bit
- Showing the front-end, then how it is editable in the backend
- We're also referring to a tutorial google doc, that outlines everything we're talking about
- YOU: Have a sense of what areas will need to be updated a lot by your team. Make sure you understand all the nitty-gritty of updating them. Ask if you can follow along and try the updates as you go. Ask about any areas of friction you might see. Who will be interacting with the WP backend a lot (if it is not you)? Make sure the process would be clear to them.
4. Handoff / Maintenance
- Discuss the launch process and how the site will be handed off to the client's control
- And how the site will be maintained post-launch (WP updates, any ongoing needs, etc)
- Go over any outstanding tasks before launch
- YOU: Make sure everyone who needs a WP login will have one. Make sure you have one. Ask about how WP updates will be handled. Ask about how ongoing needs are handled. If there is an urgent need (the website is down!), how should you handle that? If there is a less-urgent need (ooo, we'd like to redesign this one area), how is that handled and quoted?
DO:
- Be curious
- Ask a lot of questions about how to update the site
- Listen
- Ask if you can audio-record or video the meeting for future reference
DON'T:
- Ask a lot of questions / make comments related to the frontend design (not that you would! but avoid stuff like commenting on the success of the design [unless things look broken] since presumably the site has been approved)
This process will be different for every web design firm, but hopefully the above gives you a sense of how it might go and what questions to ask. In summary, I don't think there's much you need to do to prepare, other than to connect with other people on your team who need to be updating the website and to clarify your role in assisting with that.
posted by Uncle Glendinning at 8:53 AM on January 21, 2020 [4 favorites]
This is how we structure the meeting, and I've noted where your expertise and questions might be helpful.
1. Intros
- We like to get a sense of people's experience with WordPress so we can target the tutorial to their level of expertise
- YOU: If you're the one person in the company with the most WP experience, you might be the go-to internal question-answerer :) So mention your level of experience, plus any holes in your familiarity with WordPress you might have
2. Project Overview
- Especially if not everyone was involved directly in the redesign, we'll give some high-level goals of the redesign and how they were addressed
3. Page-by-Page Walkthrough
- We typically walkthrough each page module-by-module, bit-by-bit
- Showing the front-end, then how it is editable in the backend
- We're also referring to a tutorial google doc, that outlines everything we're talking about
- YOU: Have a sense of what areas will need to be updated a lot by your team. Make sure you understand all the nitty-gritty of updating them. Ask if you can follow along and try the updates as you go. Ask about any areas of friction you might see. Who will be interacting with the WP backend a lot (if it is not you)? Make sure the process would be clear to them.
4. Handoff / Maintenance
- Discuss the launch process and how the site will be handed off to the client's control
- And how the site will be maintained post-launch (WP updates, any ongoing needs, etc)
- Go over any outstanding tasks before launch
- YOU: Make sure everyone who needs a WP login will have one. Make sure you have one. Ask about how WP updates will be handled. Ask about how ongoing needs are handled. If there is an urgent need (the website is down!), how should you handle that? If there is a less-urgent need (ooo, we'd like to redesign this one area), how is that handled and quoted?
DO:
- Be curious
- Ask a lot of questions about how to update the site
- Listen
- Ask if you can audio-record or video the meeting for future reference
DON'T:
- Ask a lot of questions / make comments related to the frontend design (not that you would! but avoid stuff like commenting on the success of the design [unless things look broken] since presumably the site has been approved)
This process will be different for every web design firm, but hopefully the above gives you a sense of how it might go and what questions to ask. In summary, I don't think there's much you need to do to prepare, other than to connect with other people on your team who need to be updating the website and to clarify your role in assisting with that.
posted by Uncle Glendinning at 8:53 AM on January 21, 2020 [4 favorites]
If I may... I build websites for companies, and my company’s policy is that I have to lead user trainings for the sites I’ve built. I hate them. 75% of the questions I get are re-litigating design decisions that executives took months to decide on originally, and 20% are from people who don’t understand the basics of web browsing. That still leaves 5%, and whatever question you ask might be in that 5%, but even if it is, I’d much prefer you to just email it to me directly after the training. I know how cynical I sound, but my goal is really just to get through the training as quickly as possible.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:56 AM on January 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by kevinbelt at 8:56 AM on January 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Great answers, thanks very much for your help!!
posted by Ser Dirtnap at 9:10 AM on January 21, 2020
posted by Ser Dirtnap at 9:10 AM on January 21, 2020
Uncle Glendinning has it exactly right - I'd focus questions on flexibility and future use. Especially if you've designed themes before, there may be things you expect are easy to change that are actually hard to change.
Bad question: "Why is the background blue?"
Better question: "If we want to change the background to red in the future, how would we do that?"
posted by matrixclown at 10:21 AM on January 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
Bad question: "Why is the background blue?"
Better question: "If we want to change the background to red in the future, how would we do that?"
posted by matrixclown at 10:21 AM on January 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
I've been in the “knows wordpress for personal sites so let's have them in the meeting” seat. It's pretty awkward, especially if no-one else in the company knows web admin stuff. WPE and WP are quite different, despite the familiar look-and-feel shared by them.
It may not be your role to ask questions in the meeting. But thinking of your own WP sites, make sure that someone appropriate in the company (and not you) knows that there's a responsibility to:
posted by scruss at 12:07 PM on January 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
It may not be your role to ask questions in the meeting. But thinking of your own WP sites, make sure that someone appropriate in the company (and not you) knows that there's a responsibility to:
- maintain updates of the main package and any plugins;
- manage comments (if enabled);
- manage security and comment spam;
- ensure contact form/website requests are dealt with in an appropriate time.
posted by scruss at 12:07 PM on January 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
How are backups made, validated, and restored.
posted by Candleman at 1:42 PM on January 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Candleman at 1:42 PM on January 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
I think my questions (as someone who is generally good at WordPress but has mostly worked with my own sites) would be to ask about the levels/layers of responsibility. So exactly like Uncle Glendinning says but specifically maybe about how this would be different from situations you've been in before. So like
- What things will admins from our team NOT be able to do?
- Is there access to the site besides from the site itself (command line or sftp, for example)?
is a catch-all for me. Can you add new users? Can you edit the CSS? Can you update plug-ins, update WordPress, manage plug-in conflicts, Etc. I help my local library manage their WP site. It was built for them by a firm that was... mostly doing sites for businesses and so there is a TON of shit there that they don't need, and sometimes automatic updates break things. They don't have a service contract, the company built it as part of a grant things, and so they are stuck in certain ways because they're locked out of part of the site. So either there is a plan for updates/maintenance with your group, or it's a great time to ask in full view of everyone what the plan is going to be once it's needed.
Also as kevinbelt says, don't ask about design stuff that is over and done with, and if you're trying to do the design people a solid, try to help deflect these types of questions from your co-workers if possible.
posted by jessamyn at 3:24 PM on January 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
- What things will admins from our team NOT be able to do?
- Is there access to the site besides from the site itself (command line or sftp, for example)?
is a catch-all for me. Can you add new users? Can you edit the CSS? Can you update plug-ins, update WordPress, manage plug-in conflicts, Etc. I help my local library manage their WP site. It was built for them by a firm that was... mostly doing sites for businesses and so there is a TON of shit there that they don't need, and sometimes automatic updates break things. They don't have a service contract, the company built it as part of a grant things, and so they are stuck in certain ways because they're locked out of part of the site. So either there is a plan for updates/maintenance with your group, or it's a great time to ask in full view of everyone what the plan is going to be once it's needed.
Also as kevinbelt says, don't ask about design stuff that is over and done with, and if you're trying to do the design people a solid, try to help deflect these types of questions from your co-workers if possible.
posted by jessamyn at 3:24 PM on January 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
See if you can get a sense of how much stuff on the site is bespoke code that the agency have written, versus third-party plugins and themes. The latter will (hopefully) get updates and fixes over time from their own developers. But it would be useful to have a sense of how much code is bespoke, that will presumably only get updates and fixes if you ask (and pay) the agency for them.
If you’re comfortable with it - as in, you feel you have enough experience for it to mean something to you - then asking for a look at the code might be useful. You don’t need to examine every line or function, but personally I’d like to see what’s there.
posted by fabius at 2:03 PM on January 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
If you’re comfortable with it - as in, you feel you have enough experience for it to mean something to you - then asking for a look at the code might be useful. You don’t need to examine every line or function, but personally I’d like to see what’s there.
posted by fabius at 2:03 PM on January 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
"What is the password for the current host?"
"How can I change that password?"
"How long is [DESIGNCORP] hosting this website for?"
"If we want to change hosts, what requirements would we need for the new host?"
"If we need to get [DESIGNCORP] to change something, is [DESIGNCORP] able to accommodate new requests? How long would that take? How much would that cost?"
"Is there anything that [DESIGNCORP] considers proprietary or confidential to [DESIGNCORP] in this design?"
posted by saeculorum at 8:46 AM on January 21, 2020 [5 favorites]