Thread

I’ve been training clients on ExpressionEngine for about a year and half now, showing them how to update pages, add new weblog entries, upload photos/documents. Some clients have that light bulb moment right away… and then there are the ‘others’ who can’t seem to get it…

What are some the the techniques / tips you use to get your clients to have the moment of understanding?

Some of the things I do:
1. Dumb down the control panel as much as possible, turn of any unneeded options when editing / creating entries.
2. Clean up the control panel (they don’t need to know whats going on at Ellis Labs right?)

Apart from the things you mention above I add a quick link to a written manual that outlines the major steps for editing, publishing, a style guide etc…

If the client uses Markdown or Textile I also add a quicklink to a Textile or Markdown manual.

I’ve been having particular trouble with theWYSIWYG Editor (using Tiny MCE). In your experience is it better to make the client learn some markdown or textile then give them an WYSIWYG editor and deal with all the technical garbage that goes along with having them use it?

I always push for textile or Markdown if a client wants to update things themselves.

The mileage varies, some people love it, some don’t “get” it.

Installing TinyMCE is always my least favourite option. 😛

I recently started including this extension from Masuga and clients really seem to like it.

Great! thanks for the plugin link, I think I’ll start using that too. TinyMCE is starting to drive me nuts. 😊

I’m adding my styling directly to the buttons built into the publish page for my latest client.

I’m adding my styling directly to the buttons built into the publish page for my latest client.

screenshot?

Here’s the screenshot - top is the default html button customize page in the control panel bottom is actuall buttons in the publish page.

I still have a couple of more buttons to add as I haven’t finished the site yet.

I have the same problem, with users not remembering what to do. So I have just made my first video tutorial. I used ScreenFlow, this is very easy to use and get good results from first use. It’s not free, but $99 seemed like a good investment for the customer benefits.

I need to do some more experiments with the microphone to improve the sound quality but I managed a reasonable result on only my second attempt.