So you are going to be a website owner… Or maybe you already are. What types of tasks might you be responsible for? (Excerpted from Boagworld [This site has since been deactivated.]
- Visionary “A good web design agency should be able to help their clients shape a vision for their organisations website, however it is down to the website owner to “own” that vision and develop it over the long term. The person responsible for a website needs to have a clear picture of what role the site plays within their business and how that role could be expanded over time.”
- Advocate “As well as having a clear vision for a site the website owner also needs to be the sites advocate. By that I mean he needs to defend the site against others within the organisation that would seek to undermine its focus.”
- Evangelist “But the job of the website owner is not just defensive. A good website owner should be offensive too, actively promoting the website within his or her organisation.”
- Content guardian “Probably the most time consuming and demanding of the responsibilities held by the website owner is to oversee the content of the site.”
- Project coordinator “Developing a website involves a lot of people. Designers, developers, usability experts, content contributors, hosting companies… the list goes on. Although in many cases a website owner turns to a web design agency to handle the management of many of these roles it is still inevitable that some management will be required by the client.”
- Referee! “The unfortunate truth is that the final role a website owner often has to fulfill is unofficial referee. Web development projects are a series of compromises. Accessibility needs to be traded off against design, design against marketing, marketing against usability and so on.”
If you are planning on being, or currently are a site owner, maybe you should reassess your tasks… By the way, the Boagworld podcast is fantastic for clients, and developers…