Best training method for clients using CMS?

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1

Have recently started adding a CMS to my sites and wondered what is the best way of training clients to use it. Most of my clients are not particularly computer-savvy and I need to be able to show them how to use the WYSIWYG text editor that comes with the system. I am not overly fond of it and don’t use it myself but obviously it comes into play for clients to use it to edit their sites.

Write a manual? On-site teaching? Telephone teaching?

Thanks.

2

That’s a great idea, Ralph - I’ll check out those options
Yes, j_irwin, I expect most of what I say verbally will go in one ear and out the other.

3

I’ve found screencasts to be a good option. Doesn’t take as much time to produce compared to a manual, and the client can refer to it whenever they need to which hopefully limits the number of times they will call to go over the same thing you may have taught them in a training session.

4

These days, I’ve found it works best for me to do a screen video of how to do something and give them that. You can buy software for doing this fairly cheaply, or there are even free products. Here’s a list of some options I know of:

Commercial
Camtasia
ScreenFlow
iShowU
SnapZPro
Jing (has free version)
CamStudio
Adobe Captivate (Not specifically for screen capture, but does it)

Free
Screenr
Hypercam (also has commercial version)
Overstream
GoView
Screencast-o-matic

I use ScreenFlow, which is nice to use but is only for Mac. It’s quite addictive, though. I use it for recording TV shows as well, Skype discussions etc. Very handy.

5

Thanks FFCuss - most of the exisiting tutorials seem to be for actually using the CMS (as a web designer) and not for the actual client to use. It really only needs to be how to add content to existing pages that I am concerned with, not adding new pages or anything too extensive. A one-hour personal meeting should do it, I think.

6

If you are close, give them a one-hour training session in person. My clients seem to like that. Naturally, that session’s time is built into the project price.

If they’re far away you could give them a training session using something like GoToMeeting.

Also, search around to see if you can find a tutorial for that CMS that somebody already made. Perhaps it is something you can point the client to for help as well.