Lifecycles of websites

Discussed:

Lack of experience with site lifecyle

• Spec maintenance - encouraging owners to pay attention and /or take over themselves
  • Ongoing contact model
  • Documentation is problematic
    • Create documentation as part of ramp up

Content - keeping current:

• Who provides it?
• Who does it?

Keeping site security updated

• difference between Drupal and WordPress
  • Drupal: Security updates only
  • WordPress: Choosing plugins with eye to longevity - indicators are install base, last updated, # of issues resolved

What defines end of website lifecycle?

• clients "drop off the map" but site is still live
  • not applicable in cases where developer is hosting site/owns hosting
• Client rarely initiates request to delete site when they're in charge of hosting/domain
• hosting company pulls site after neglect or deletes plugins that affect site functionality
• client requests complete revamp of site
• "zombie" website - keep up because easier solution than taking it down

Tracking suppent requests

Tools:

• email (small scale)
• Zendesk (expensive)
• Trello (private tracker

Transparency to use is important!

Updates

Content updates are part of a life cycle Challenges:

• Creating new content
• messaging existing content before transfer to new version of site

Content will not create itself and will not update itself; make planning for content updates as part of life cycle