Discussion Forums

Does anyone have experience using free online web build tools like Weebly.com and doodlekit.com?

There are some shortcomings but they seem to offer an easy way for small orgs to get online.

Any thoughts?

Not used either of these tools so would be interested to know other peoples experiences.

Also worth considering using wordpress. Although predominantly aimed at blogs it can also be used to build websites. For an example have a look at http://www.lasa.org.uk/ictchampion, for more information go to http://www.wordpress.com

Yes, Wordpress is excellent. I just think that, for beginners, it can be difficult to configure as a website and slightly complicated to use.

Hello Penge-Com and welcome to the forums.
Whilst I haven't used the specific tools you mention I have used other hosted web building tools.
Assuming groups have thought through things like why they want a website in the first place, how they are going to maintain it, backing up content, accessibility and other issues touched on in the knowledgebase article here:
http://www.ictknowledgebase.org.uk/youronlinepresencebasics, these tools can be great. As ever, always important to read the terms of service.

Very interested to hear your thoughts on the limitations of Weebly.com and doodlekit if you've used them. doodlekit.com claims to produce accessible, standards compliant code and both seem reasonably easy to use.

A limitation with pretty much any web building tools is that in the wrong hands it's also entirely possible to produce sites with poor design, usability, accessibility etc.

Following up on Aba's well-made points about information planning and design, another important requirement for these DIY tools to work is that a group has a champion/technical enthusiast for keeping the site maintained. Even tools like Wordpress don't entirely eliminate the need for some technical understanding to fix stuff that goes wrong or customise the layout. When I analyze projects I've been involved with to see which have succeeded and which have failed, the good ones have the champion and the failures have assumed that somehow the technology will do everything.

Second what SteveC says about Wordpress,

It really needs that 'champion' who's prepared to learn as it goes because it's a great plaftform (with great search engine visibility) but doing anything other than just posting text to the default theme gets quite technical quite quickly.

Interesting discussion.

I would also be interested if anyone has experience/views of the accessibility features (or lack of) within some of these web building tools

I use WordPress for most of my websites e.g. www.greekcare.org.au. It's great for website editors because it makes creating content really easy. It has most of the CMS functionality you need for a small to medium-sized organisation's website. And as mukaumedia noted, it's very search engine friendly.

The problem is with the themes. There are thousands of free themes you can download, many of them very well-designed. But they're all blogging themes, with an emphasis on commenting, not CMS themes. WordPress did start out as a blogging tool but it's evolved into a credible CMS: sadly the theme designers don't seem to have noticed.

Jason King
Nonprofit web design: www.kingjason.co.uk

Jason, thank for the link to your site - I not only enjoyed learning a bit of Greek - but it introduced me to the Yahoo audio player which I borrowed immediately :-)
Cheers!

OK, I need to revise my opinion. Contrary to my remarks above there are now many great professional calibre premium themes available for WordPress.

WP Remix is one I've purchased recently. It offers more than most templates, it's a framework for designing complex WordPress themes which gives users greater control over the layout.

Woothemes.com offer some really nice-looking themes including some for specific purposes such as photography, magazine style layouts, selling products, and of course blogging.

And Shopp, a plugin I used recently, offers shopping cart functionality so you can easily have a WordPress-powered e-commerce site.

Jason King
Nonprofit web design: www.kingjason.co.uk