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Title:
Web Project Management - Maintaining and Evolving Successful Commercial Web Sites
Review:
I was quick to volunteer to review Ashley Friedlein's 'Maintaining and
Evolving Successful Commercial Web Site' as the title held promise for
some interesting reading. As I teach web design with a strong focus on
the site development process I also thought that it may be a potential
reading list candidate!
For someone who grew up reading comics rather than novels, Ashley's
book, coming in at around 400 pages, was just about manageable. The
first commendation is that it manages throughout to remain clear and
concise on a variety of quite complex issues. Broken up into four
clear sections including Change Management, Content Management,
Customer Relationship Management and Site Measurement, it preaches
practical, common sense solutions.
In Part One, on Change Management (CM), you get a breakdown of the
processes and practices that all but the very smallest web sites can
follow to effectively maintain an evolving site. This provides some
very practical theory that we may not all be able to practice, but
gives us a standard at which to aim. It does however become clear that
many web sites may never need to move beyond this stage if they get CM
right.
Under Content Management, a series of excellent descriptions make it
easy to identify where your own site sits. These describe the
evolution of a site towards a Content Management System (CMS),
starting with the 'webmaster phase', then the 'database phase' and
finally reaching full CMS. The section breaks down the whole process
of moving to CMS including nine excellent pages that would provide
anyone about to purchase a CMS with most of the selection criteria
they would ever need.
Part Three focuses on Customer Relationship Management (CRM). I've
always tried to get my students to focus on their users, now I have a
name for it! The focus is on who the current users are and how they
are served. I'm always amazed at how many web sites still hide their
contact details or insist on the telephone as the point of contact
rather than email!
For someone who has consistently failed to get to grips with log files
and analysers, Part Four on Site Measurement is enlightening. This
part gives details on what should be measured and analysed because, as
Ashley rightly points out, 'any reporting that cannot be analysed to
come up with actions has little value'.
Like all other parts, this section is enhanced by a number of well
written case studies, although there are shades of a mad professor in
a DeLorean sports car caused by a typo in the Autoglass study which
states that they implemented their 'first Web measurement solution in
1898'!
I always use the daft phrase that 'a website is for life' when people
ask for my advice at the start of a project. We all learn quickly that
once up and running, a site can take over. Ashley provides us with the
tools to tame the beast and to ensure it develops and (hopefully)
succeeds as a commercial entity.
Free Pint Reviewer:
Richard Eskins lectures in web design on the undergraduate programme
in The Department of Information and Communications at Manchester
Metropolitan University. Routes on the programme include Web Content
Management, Information Management, Information and Communications,
Information Architecture and Information and Library Management
<http://www.mmu.ac.uk/h-ss/dic/>.
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