CMS Website Guide

Our team specializes in building content management system (CMS) websites — from discovery to wireframing and design to content entry and administration. We build websites to fit your needs, moderate content after they launch, and continue partnering with you as your needs change.

Tell us what you need your site to do and say, and we’ll bring our expertise and experience to bear and make it happen!

Our process and terms

Think of your website as a house that you’re building or renovating. In that case:

Domain — The name of the plot of land you’re building on, as if you were naming your estate. All of our public site domains end in berkeley.edu.

URL or Web Address — Your street address

Development Site or Development Server — A construction site with “No Trespassing” signs hung all over it, i.e. where a nonpublic copy of the website is built. It usually has the suffix “website” instead of “edu.”

Project Coordinator — Your project manager, main point of contact, and construction foreman. The P.C. is also your designated editorial contact and content wrangler.

Wireframe — Created by the Digital Designer, the wireframe acts as the architectural blueprint for your website house — how many floors, how many bedrooms and bathrooms, where the front and back doors go, where the staircases start and end, what rooms connect to each other, etc.

The wireframe details the site’s flow and function, ideally so that you can get your users where you want them to go in an intuitive, clear way.

  • Changing the structure after launch will cause significant delays and could result in what we call a Winchester Mystery House website. We encourage you to think carefully during the wireframing phase about how you want users to navigate your site. Put in a new job request should you wish to radically renovate the site structure in the future.
  • The content on the wireframes represents the amount of storage you anticipate needing in those areas. If a section has two sentences of placeholder copy where you know you’ll need two paragraphs — or vice versa — let us know!
  • Wireframes usually have placeholder content, which can include Lorem ipsum text to show what certain amounts of text look like in certain places, including headlines, subheads, photo captions, contact form fields, button text, and more.

Feature Development — Once the wireframes are approved, the Web Developer starts on Feature Development for your website house — pouring the foundation, putting up the frame, hanging sheetrock, and installing electrical and plumbing where you said you wanted it.

Site Designs — The Digital Designer then presents the Site Designs, which you can think of as the interior decoration. What color do you want the walls inside and out? Do you want carpet in the bedrooms but hardwood floors everywhere else? Do those French doors you included in the wireframe need curtains or blinds?

  • Website décor includes things like title treatments, color screens on photos, headline font colors, and more.
  • Site Designs usually have placeholder content, which can include:
    • Banner images that you may want to keep or decide to replace.
    • Lorem ipsum text to show what certain amounts of text look like in certain places.

Theme Development — Once the Site Designs are approved, the Web Developer begins Theme Development — painting the walls, hanging the drapes, laying that sweet shag carpet you chose, and so on.

Content Entry — Once the Theme Development is complete, the Web Developer and Project Coordinator will train Partner-Clients on how to do Content Entry — how to move your stuff in and safely hang your paintings.

The Partner-Clients are responsible for entering their editorial content and imagery into the new website prior to QA Testing.

Exceptions include:

  • Hard-coded content that must be entered by the developer.
  • Content that all involved have agreed will be rolled out post-launch.
  • In the case of rebuilt sites, content that the Web Developer can migrate from the existing site.

Content Freeze — The date when you have to stop entering content so that the steps below can happen, i.e. when you stop moving chairs around because the housewarming party is about to start.

Quality Assurance (QA) Testing — The housewarming party, if all of your invitees were really rude, curious, and clumsy — it’s when a bunch of people go on the site and see how well they can get around, if the house matches the architectural plans, if the paintings are hung upside down, if there are ants in the kitchen, if any sinks don’t work, or if they can easily break the toilet.

Launch — Once the Web Developer has fixed all the stuff your horrible friends have documented, we can Launch!