wordpress, how do you educate your clients?

[greg.mcausland]

So i’ve set up a blog for the first time for a client who is purely an email-phone client. Before i’ve walked some clients through wordpress in the office for 30 min.

How do you guys go about teaching an off-shore client how to use their new blog ? I had thought of doing a couple of screencasts, or even a written tutorial.. but im not sure how well that would go down. Should I refer them to an official source perhaps?

If anyone has experience with this kind of thing i’d be interested to hear how they handled it.

All the best

[Chris Coyier]

I think screencasts is a great way to go. I’ve been toying around with creating a screencast or two on how to use the backend of WordPress on a really generic level for a fictional client. Are you thinking that would be a cold and impersonal way to teach them? I would think the opposite in general. I think a client would be impressed if you gave them a video demo they could keep and refer back to. Above and beyond.

[TheDoc]

Somebody just recently posted a "How to" that they give to new users to WordPress, specifically aimed at clients. I think it’s on my computer at work, I’ll have to remember to check tomorrow. It was in PDF form.

[greg.mcausland]

"chriscoyier" wrote:

I think screencasts is a great way to go. I’ve been toying around with creating a screencast or two on how to use the backend of WordPress on a really generic level for a fictional client. Are you thinking that would be a cold and impersonal way to teach them? I would think the opposite in general. I think a client would be impressed if you gave them a video demo they could keep and refer back to. Above and beyond.

Yeah, I have to admit i was slightly worried as to how it would be received. Having never met this client face to face I tend to keep my correspondence with them slightly more guarded, its harder to judge their responses without knowing their personalities somewhat. I know it sounds a bit on the silly side, but its early days for me in the industry and I worry more about how to handle clients than I do development or design.

That said I’m glad you like the idea of screencasts for clients, personally when learning something I can’t think of a better method of delivery. I felt that I had to weigh it up against some kind of print option, but like you said; above and beyond. The extra effort and polish of a screencast will really kick start the clients blogging without a more cumbersome manual.

I’m just at the stage when these hurdles are popping up and affirmation from pros really helps the confidence when you’re unsure which direction is most appropriate.

Quote:

Somebody just recently posted a "How to" that they give to new users to WordPress, specifically aimed at clients. I think it’s on my computer at work, I’ll have to remember to check tomorrow. It was in PDF form.

if you can get a minute to find that link Doc, I’d really appreciate it! Seeing how others teach would be very beneficial for me to form a foundation.

Thanks for the replies guys, if all goes well screencasting wise, ill post them up here when im done. Unless they are terrible in which case ill retreat promptly into the shadows.

[TheDoc]

After actually opening it, it’s just 5 pages of 5 screenshots with a few arrows describing some functions, not very good at all.

[videousermanuals]

Hi there. We recently did a talk at WordCamp Melbourne about this subject. You can watch the presentation here: http://vimeo.com/20546639

In it Troy talks about the begins of our WordPress Manual Plugin. About a year ago, he sat down for 3 weeks in a dark room and produced a comprehensive manual with hundreds of screenshots and detailed descriptions of all the functionality. He showed it to me, and I was impressed, but then guess what, WordPress updated and his manual was out of date.

This was the seed of the idea of having a video tutorial sweet actually inside WordPress itself and so your clients can access it, where they need it most.

To find out more about it visit our website, http://www.videousermanuals.com

In answer to your question above, we polled visitors to our site, and on average it is 2 hours for training, and a additional 1 hour for questions. Make sure you build at least this amount into your quote!

Thanks
Brian

[Author]

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