WebeDNA Case Study
Webepigenetics has been my personal tool for many years now but I have on occasion had other people play with it especially the WebeDNA website creation suite.
About three years ago a Luton based media company was at a loss as to how to create a large site that could document all their services. Having seen the ShoutLuton site they approached me. I gave them a demonstration on a laptop of how easily it is to update a complex site like ShoutLuton with simple changes of an XML site script.
I created a distribution for Windows (my primary development platform is Mac/ Linux) but because it uses the Perl language which is portable over many platforms creating a version of the system that runs in Windows was easy enough. Perl can be installed on Windows using the free ActiveState distribution.
With a half days training they were up and running. I showed them how to create a basic template in XML and how to add pages, text and images. The company did not however have the technical skills to create the tag definitions themselves which required Perl programming ability but the basic set of tags I supplied with the distribution seemed to be enough to last them for two years.
Without any further input from me they continued and eventually created a large multipage site with over 25000 words.
Conclusion
The experiment was a success because the company maintained the site all by themselves for a period of two years.
In this time they worked exclusively with XML and did not have to resort to any html, Perl or other low level languages. This proved that a system level user can easily maintain a complex environment using only high level XML constructs!
The downside for this particular company was that without the skills to add to the low level tag set they could not create new functions or substantially alter the layouts which suggest that the ideal installation for the system is in a multi skill environment. The ideal development team would consist of a designer who creates
images and content and a technologist who can work with the designer.
The aim is to have the designer not the technologist as the main
driver behind the site functionality look and feel.
The company now uses Apples's iWeb software because it's drag and drop functionality more suits their technical skill set. Also the ShoutLuton derived template they had was more suited to a news site not really a creative site. However the fact that they did get on with WebeDNA for two years is encouraging and certainly proves the usefulness of the two tier skill approach to system design and maintenance.
Business Models
Based on the experiment with the Luton media company two business models become apparent:-
1) The web design agency can design and sell a site which gives the customer complete control over the content of the site via XML. However when it comes to adding functionality and template changes these could be offered on a consultancy basis.
2) The advanced customer that has the skills set to reprogram the tag definitions - an installation and training package can be sold as well as ongoing support which would grant the customer telephone and remote access support and include upgrades and new tag definitions when they become available. The software itself would be free and open source.
Webepigenetics has been my personal tool for many years now but I have on occasion had other people play with it especially the WebeDNA website creation suite.
About three years ago a Luton based media company was at a loss as to how to create a large site that could document all their services. Having seen the ShoutLuton site they approached me. I gave them a demonstration on a laptop of how easily it is to update a complex site like ShoutLuton with simple changes of an XML site script.
I created a distribution for Windows (my primary development platform is Mac/ Linux) but because it uses the Perl language which is portable over many platforms creating a version of the system that runs in Windows was easy enough. Perl can be installed on Windows using the free ActiveState distribution.
With a half days training they were up and running. I showed them how to create a basic template in XML and how to add pages, text and images. The company did not however have the technical skills to create the tag definitions themselves which required Perl programming ability but the basic set of tags I supplied with the distribution seemed to be enough to last them for two years.
Without any further input from me they continued and eventually created a large multipage site with over 25000 words.
Conclusion
The experiment was a success because the company maintained the site all by themselves for a period of two years.
In this time they worked exclusively with XML and did not have to resort to any html, Perl or other low level languages. This proved that a system level user can easily maintain a complex environment using only high level XML constructs!
The downside for this particular company was that without the skills to add to the low level tag set they could not create new functions or substantially alter the layouts which suggest that the ideal installation for the system is in a multi skill environment. The ideal development team would consist of a designer who creates
images and content and a technologist who can work with the designer.
The aim is to have the designer not the technologist as the main
driver behind the site functionality look and feel.
The company now uses Apples's iWeb software because it's drag and drop functionality more suits their technical skill set. Also the ShoutLuton derived template they had was more suited to a news site not really a creative site. However the fact that they did get on with WebeDNA for two years is encouraging and certainly proves the usefulness of the two tier skill approach to system design and maintenance.
Business Models
Based on the experiment with the Luton media company two business models become apparent:-
1) The web design agency can design and sell a site which gives the customer complete control over the content of the site via XML. However when it comes to adding functionality and template changes these could be offered on a consultancy basis.
2) The advanced customer that has the skills set to reprogram the tag definitions - an installation and training package can be sold as well as ongoing support which would grant the customer telephone and remote access support and include upgrades and new tag definitions when they become available. The software itself would be free and open source.