Comments on: Unify: making sites simple for clients

By: Leon

Leon — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 07:58:32 +0000

Thanks for your reply, Monica. It’s definitely worth learning something like WordPress for more complex sites. But it can get somewhat tedious. Working in “plain” HTML is quicker and, as you say, more fun. And there’s less to go wrong, of course.

By: Monica

Monica — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 06:06:32 +0000

Thanks so much for this article! I’m a designer. I absolutely LOVE to code from scratch and make my own creations from scratch. It’s just part of the artist in me. What I don’t like about WP and many other CMS’s is this idea that I had to take someone’s theme and then break it down from there to make my own “creations”. Or, somehow learn how to create my own theme. That’s a steep learning curve for someone with an HTML/CSS background only. I also felt restricted by templates and themes.

Unify and similar CMS’s to someone like me, gives me more freedom to create exactly what I want, how I want it and just specify what my client can and can not alter. This is especially great for my clients who are mostly individuals and small businesses who don’t need anything as robust as WP or Joomla to just add or subtract some text or images from time to time.

By: Leon

Leon — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:07:30 +0000

@Matthew G:

Thanks for your comment, Matthew. I guess it often depends on the client and their comfort with the web or computers in general: I often deal with people who can open a browser, login into their bank account and not much more. The very idea of a CMS is difficult for them to get their heads around.

I use WordPress for stuff at work, and I like it a lot. Like you, it helped me get a lot better at doing stuff on the web. I still prefer writing straight markup and CSS, though

By: Matthew Gerring

Matthew Gerring — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:05:42 +0000

My clients love WordPress, and it’s easy enough for me to use that if it’s too complicated for them to figure out, I can make some quick adjustments and make it easier. Not to mention that learning WordPress made me into a full-fledged web developer, rather than just someone who can put together a web page.

For instance, the “edit in place” functionality offered by Unify is available as a WordPress plugin called, well, “Edit In Place”. And most of my clients don’t even need it to be that easy- clicking on “Pages” to edit Pages is pretty darned intuitive.

By: Matthew Chambers

Matthew Chambers — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:21:31 +0000

No problem Leon, you’ve written a good article. I think the issues I had were mostly teething trouble (I started testing it from the day of launch) and have been rare.

My clients always report back that they love the simplicity of it… now if only it could be white labeled – that would be cool

By: Tweets that mention Unify: making sites simple for clients → Leon Paternoster -- Topsy.com

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:13:29 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Leon Paternoster, Andy Rutledge, Sam Howat, Jonathan Christopher, Unit Interactive and others. Unit Interactive said: RT @leonpaternoster: My review of @unitinteractive's Unify: http://is.gd/70maM [...]

By: Leon

Leon — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:10:16 +0000

@Chris: Thanks for your comment. I’ve found you can do quite a few things with, say, some simple javascript, Twitter, MailChimp and Unify (it makes for an easy way for clients to post news). But you’re always mindful that firing up a CMS and installing a couple of plugins can make things simpler (for the developer, at least).

It’s a judgement call. I find that clients ask me about editing little bits of content rather than how to add new pages, but that’s probably because my clients are generally one–man bands or very small businesses.

@Matthew: Thanks for your comment as well. I haven’t had that problem yet (and hope I don’t!). I find letting the client try out Unify beforehand on my own site helps a lot. I hear good things about Perch too.

By: We’re Saying It Again | Unit Verse

We’re Saying It Again | Unit Verse — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:11:51 +0000

[...] a debate about the exact nature of our nifty little product. Some users/on-lookers understand our distinction while others respond dismissively or with outright incredulity. So, to help further the discussion [...]

By: Matthew Chambers

Matthew Chambers — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:48:53 +0000

I have found Unify to be easy to use, a reasonable price with good support… so I am mostly happy with it.

The biggest downside I have found is that it is too easy for the client to kill a page while administrating and as Unify only saves the version of the page previous to the last time published it is easy to lose work.

I am looking at Perch as an alternative…

By: Chris Johnson

Chris Johnson — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:28:13 +0000

So far I’ve enjoyed working with Unify. It’s got just enough power for those simple business card type web sites.

The one big downside is that adding pages still requires a web savvy user to go on to FTP and add a new file. Sure, us web guys can charge for that sort of work, but I don’t enjoy doing it.