Creating a website - The Bear and Badger

AJ

Hodge360 wrote:

Out of interest,if you had to set up your own. How long (roughly) should it take to get up and running? I know that's vague and depends on a lot of variables but some sort of guesstimate would be interesting.

Without design time (which could range from a day to a month, depending on various factors) I'd expect around a week for something basic, a month for something exceptionally complex. Of course, there's a lot of factors related to it; I wouldn't expect to duplicate Amazon-level functionality in that time, for instance.

That said, it should be possible to get a decent enough store up and running in a day if you're happy with ready made templates.

b0r1s

It all comes down to the business needs, if you need integration with back office systems stock control etc, then you'll want something either custom coded (always a bad idea) or sufficiently flexible enough to allow for these integrations.

Simple stores like Business Catalyst, Brilliant Retail, Open Cart etc are great for a quick setup out of the box, but there are limitations that don't come clear until all the business requirements have been documented. Conversely, systems like Magento, while AJ had heard bad things about it, are more flexible, but you may not need that cost for flexibility, it is a system that is worth the money for really complex e-commerce requirements.

I would suggest not even doing anything about systems until your business rules have been analysed, agreed and document. These include things like stock and order control, crm, reporting, offers, vouchers etc. It does sound like your business is only just moving online, which may give you some scope, but it probably also means that any existing computer system would be archaic. Maybe that then requires that system needs redeveloping or scrapping. Lot of variables Hodge

AJ

Totally agree; nothing should be done until a proper analysis has been performed. Otherwise you'll be getting stuff that doesn't do what you need or paying for extras you don't.

TBH, if you've got an in-house tech team, you might well be best off just using a third party for payments; none of the core functionality is actually that hard to make - it's keeping everything secure and in keeping with EU requirements etc. that's where the hard work comes in.

Hodge360

Thanks. It's just lately I've been replying to "That'll all change when the online system starts" with "The one they've been talking about for the last 2-3 years?".
I understand a lot of planning needs to take place but it doesn't seem to be and I'd like to give examples of possible end products to aim for.
Security and reporting will be too major factors but if we can integrate internal and external solutions,that'd prob be ideal.

AJ

If you want to give examples to aim for, surely the best is competitor sites?

dynamiteReady

Hodge360 wrote:

...Security and reporting will be too major factors but if we can integrate internal and external solutions,that'd prob be ideal.

If you're asking about text editors, but also have concerns like these in mind, talk to an expert.

PM anyone of us in here, we all like a natter, but also find experts away from here. Always make sure you get simple explanations for anything that puzzles you. Don't accept any jargon, or at least obtain common sense explanations when jargon is used. You'll then be in a better position to aggregate opinion.

If you're in a position to hire someone to help you make a plan of action and oversee/effect any development work (even if it's just to use a templating engine), then do it. You will save you money in the long run, surely.

b0r1s

Hodge360 wrote:

if we can integrate internal and external solutions,that'd prob be ideal.

That is exactly where your problems and costs will arise, getting two systems to talk to each other, unless they are built on open standards isn't always easy. If your tech team had the foresight to develop an API with their system, then that work is mitigated somewhat. If not, then expect a lot of head scratching and hard work from somebody.

EDIT - re dynamite's comment, an API is an Application Programming Interface. Code to help me work with that systems code.

Hodge360

AJ wrote:

If you want to give examples to aim for, surely the best is competitor sites?

There are none,think that's the main reason we get away with such shoddy work practices. Point taken though,I could investigate some similar businesses.
Also,it's also not so much a site I want as an example but a complete package where you can see the site but more importantly the in-house stuff and how you have control over it.

dynamiteReady

The Beeb have had another homepage redesign...

http://m.bbc.co.uk/

There was a lot of bitching over the last one...
What do yall' think of the new page?

AJ

Mobile site scales up well to desktop. Desktop site confuses me. No other opinions.

dynamiteReady

Bump...

Anyone seen this vid? - https://www.facebook.com/chris.cox/videos/10101920404101583/?__mref=message_bubble

dynamiteReady

First time in a while I've found an article like this interesting... Reddit's just rolled out a new beta design. It's one of those sites where I don't really give a shit about it, but don't hate it either... Like Yahoo in the early 90's.

Indeed, it's probably one of the best repositories for unstructured and unsolicited discussion on the web... If you're researching something complicated, or weird, chances are, there are people on Reddit who are already discussing your subject in depth (moderated mind/too) already.

Would like them to shuffle into the space that I hope Facebook gets pushed out of...

https://www.wired.com/story/reddit-redesign/

Hodge360

Read that last night,quite interesting. Did you get it from a Pocket email?
Interesting reading back through this page having spent six months trying to fudge the website that work went ahead with into expectations.

dynamiteReady

Pocket? I don't know what that is... I just like reading Wired from time to time.
What site have you been working on, exactly?

Hodge360

Its a handy little app for saving links to read later across different devices. I thought that link came from one of their email digests of recently popular links but now I think, it was in an email from the Hacking UI podcast team.
Wasn't working on a website exactly, just assisting a team in coping with the back end of an online sales platform and integrating it with their old systems.

Diluted Dante

Hello internet. Say a person wanted to make a website with information on elections, with the idea of having a page for every party and candidate with what they stand for, where the hell would one start?

I'm assuming that I can do some kind of voodoo with a database rather than having to create every page from scratch, although how one performs this spell is beyond me.

AJ

Of the things I know, Concrete5 would probably suit you best; you could do what you ask without any coding at all. Might well be better options though as I only really know the stuff I've used for work and not any of the ready to go services.

b0r1s

If it’s just info you want to show with minimal functionality then one of the flat file CMS systems might suit. They are intentionally simple and fast to load. Note just because they don’t use a DB doesn’t mean you have to create each page from scratch. That is just handled in a different way.

Get Grav is very popular and I’ve just used Publii to setup a site that literally took 10 minutes.

Publii is a desktop app with a bunch of themes for creating blog like sites. You can customise the theme add tags to articles to create categories e.g. one per party add images and embed YouTube videos etc. The editor is not unlike a more advanced (and nicer) forum editor. Functionality is limited, but that makes it easy to maintain.

Grav has a bigger community, but is slightly more work to setup.

Wordpress is an option if you want to start to add functionality as you go (with plugins) but that comes with a raft of issues around maintenance including security and updating. But it does have the largest community so forums and support are in abundance.

dynamiteReady

Diluted Dante wrote:

Hello internet. Say a person wanted to make a website with information on elections, with the idea of having a page for every party and candidate with what they stand for, where the hell would one start? I'm assuming that I can do some kind of voodoo with a database rather than having to create every page from scratch, although how one performs this spell is beyond me.

Yeah. That's a DB project...

A cms of somekind could be a good solution, but the first thought would be how many parties and candidates are there? There's like, 500+ seats and constituencies, right? With at least 3 candidates for most of those.

Each of those candidates will have at least a name, age, party, perhaps list of issues they stand for...

Which ever way you do it (even if it's a brass' design with little interaction, that aims to alievate programmer's involvement as much as possible), if it's done from the ground up, it's a huge job.

edit - Second point... There are quite a few sites out there like that. Has anyone already done something like it? And are you doing something they don't?

Otherwise, you could perhaps just scrape their data, and do something lighter on top of it...

dynamiteReady

@AJ - Never heard of Concrete 5, recommended over Wordpress / Dupal, et al?

AJ

For someone that doesn't already know what they're doing, yeah. If he can get a decent dev on board, it's like an afternoon to get core functionality running.

Edit: re: huge job.

AJ

dynamiteReady wrote:

@AJ - Never heard of Concrete 5, recommended over Wordpress / Dupal, et al?

Depends what you're doing, everything has their own pros and cons. I'd generally recommend anything over Wordpress, though.

dynamiteReady

AJ wrote:

For someone that doesn't already know what they're doing, yeah. If he can get a decent dev on board, it's like an afternoon to get core functionality running.

Edit: re: huge job.

No. I'm talking about even the most basic data entry part of it.
It is a huge job. Where do you even get that info from?

AJ

I'm sure it's available somewhere. But, yeah, collating and entering it would be a huge job. I wasn't thinking and assumed all necessary data to be ready in a spreadsheet or something.

b0r1s

But whatever system you use is going to be a massive job to input the data if you don’t have it already formatted. I think it really comes down to what functionality Dante wants. That will determine platform.

AJ

Going on the requirements given so far, pretty much anything will do. Does need a bit more detail for a proper suggestion on the platform, true.

Right, so to answer this:

Diluted Dante wrote:

Hello internet. Say a person wanted to make a website with information on elections, with the idea of having a page for every party and candidate with what they stand for, where the hell would one start?

Collating the data. Or, at very least ascertaining where to get it from. Make sure that's not going to be more effort than it's worth to you before taking any other steps.

Diluted Dante

dynamiteReady wrote:

Diluted Dante wrote:

Hello internet. Say a person wanted to make a website with information on elections, with the idea of having a page for every party and candidate with what they stand for, where the hell would one start? I'm assuming that I can do some kind of voodoo with a database rather than having to create every page from scratch, although how one performs this spell is beyond me.

Yeah. That's a DB project... A cms of somekind could be a good solution, but the first thought would be how many parties and candidates are there? There's like, 500+ seats and constituencies, right? With at least 3 candidates for most of those. Each of those candidates will have at least a name, age, party, perhaps list of issues they stand for... Which ever way you do it (even if it's a brass' design with little interaction, that aims to alievate programmer's involvement as much as possible), if it's done from the ground up, it's a huge job. edit - Second point... There are quite a few sites out there like that. Has anyone already done something like it? And are you doing something they don't? Otherwise, you could perhaps just scrape their data, and do something lighter on top of it...

There is little information on local elections, and what there is can be disparate and difficult to find. The only thing you can generally find is the name of the candidate and the party, which tells you very little. I can get that information easily enough, though as you say the input is time consuming. But I work a job where I'm in front of a computer all day, not working 60% of the time.

The idea is people can search an area, and find this information. Putting bigger elections in as well makes it a one stop shop. Plus also information about the different voting systems in use, and alternate options. I'd be looking to make a mix of written and video content. On top of the basic info from the database.

AJ

When you say area, is that easily defined by a single data point? Say, county or similar? Geographical searches can be a nightmare.

Video content you're best of hosting on YouTube and embedding, everything else you describe should be easily handled by any CMS worth its salt.

AJ

Thinking about it, Google Sites might provide the functionality you're after without the hassle of setup or anything.

Diluted Dante

AJ wrote:

When you say area, is that easily defined by a single data point? Say, county or similar? Geographical searches can be a nightmare. Video content you're best of hosting on YouTube and embedding, everything else you describe should be easily handled by any CMS worth its salt.

Area would be your ward, so probably a postcode search. Or your city and click from there.

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