When I tell our clients that we will be using Drupal to power their site, a confused look sometimes forms on their face. When I tell them that Drupal is a content management system, the confused look often remains.

A content management system allows the site owner to easily update the content of the site via a simple web interface. You don’t need to call a web design company every time you want to write a new blog entry or change the phone number on your contact page. You simply just log in to your content management system and change what you want.

Drupal is one of the most popular content management systems around today. It’s completely open source and developed by the community for the community. Small organizations aren’t the only ones who use Drupal. Some big names include Sony Music, Lifetime, Popular Science, Fast Company, Fox Searchlight, The Onion, Pink, and many more.

We use Drupal at Blueye because it is cost-effective. Drupal comes packaged with many common features which means we can spend more time tending to the needs of the client’s project rather than reinventing the wheel (so to speak).  The client ends up with a beautifully designed site that is super easy to manage and update on their own.

If you are a developer or designer, chances are you have already received a Word document containing a screenshot from a client. You may be frustrated immediately upon receiving the Word document. “Doesn’t the client understand that an image is a file type of its own? It doesn’t need to be contained in anything to travel through cyberspace.”

But step back for a moment and take a look at the situation from the clients point of view. People are introduced to Microsoft Word almost immediately upon learning to use a computer. Talk to a 9 year old and then talk to a 59 year old. Chances are they both have heard of Microsoft Word and probably use it on a regular basis. To the everyday computer user in todays world, Microsoft Word is the default software for any need and any situation. Need to type up a book report or a white paper? Microsoft Word. Need to draw? Microsoft Word. Need to send an image? Microsoft Word.

When you think about it, “the screenshot in the Word document” problem is quite amazing. This one piece of software is used by (or has been used by, at one time) almost every computer user in the world. The software has been used so much that when a user is unsure of what software to use to meet their need, they use this software.

So is it really the clients fault…