Websites, by default, are not user friendly, easy to update or simple to navigate. Their back-ends are not intuitive, functional or pretty. At their most basic, they’re empty spaces ready to be filled with other files and content. It is only the efforts of designers and programmers that they become content depositories. This is the first step. A simple idea of turning nothing into something. That idea, and some code, make it possible. But now, in addition to developing a site, we have to develop it in such a way that allows the owners of the site to have direct access to make changes and update content, all from their computers or smartphones and without any knowledge of code. They want to be able to change the fonts, colors and layout with the click of a button while on vacation, to schedule the launch of a new product line while transferring flights. Today, websites have to be easy.
In today’s world, developers have to share access to control. However, that same access and control has to be created, and that requires coding in and of itself. On behalf of all developers: it’s not easy.
Making website tasks accessible to non-developers means having to write thousands of lines of code and account for an endless amount of variables.
For example, the content manage system (CMS) that allows you to log in and make edits to your website’s content, create new pages or change the appearance of the site have to be created by a developer. That developer has to account for every way a user could interact and use the new tool. Making this tool means writing code—code that is complex, yet is flexible enough to adjust to the intentions of someone who doesn’t know the website from the inside out. This means writing code in multiple languages all with different syntax, functions and calls. It means using databases, server scripts and applications. It means creating logic for a previously empty space.
By human nature, we ask for the easiest way to complete a task. This practice is fundamental to building a better site, but we must acknowledge that ease of use means writing a more complex web. We also have to accept that no program, developer or user can account for every variable. Sometimes, things break or unpredictable results happen. This has not stopped us from seeking to make a more accessible web. Instead, developers have embraced this idea and we have rose to the complex challenges that it presents. We work to make websites easy, even if the work itself is not.