[Techtalk] Helping non-techies with websites -- any experience?

[Chris Hardy]

non-techy friends:  I still help out a few friends who I built sites for in the past, but am reluctant to take on any more ... IME, once you build a website for a friend, you'll be maintaining and fixing it for a long time because it becomes part of how you support each other as friends.  I think this is fine as long as it's a healthy reciprocal relationship or the website is for a cause you feel strongly about.  It becomes less fine when your lives take different paths and you only hear from them when they need free website work done.

technophobes:  If it's a person who is a technophobe by choice because they don't like technology and aren't interested in learning,  just.  No.  they may not appreciate the work you're doing, and can be resentful that they need it done.   

On the other hand some of my favorite "volunteer" projects have been building sites for people who were intensely interested, called themselves technophobes because they were afraid of breaking things, and they flourished once they had someone to help get it started and to call with questions as they learned.

in terms of technology - I'd probably go with a wordpress.com <http://wordpress.com/> website or, if that isn't flexible enough, then a wpengine.com <http://wpengine.com/> hosting account.  One of the benefits of something like WordPress is that so many people use it that not only are there lots of free themes etc, but also a lot of documentation and community support.  

If your friend has a lot of images, then wpengine might be a better option because they provide a tool that integrates pretty seamlessly with AWS S3 for static assets like images.

hth
chris