PageCloud: Initial musings

In the past week or so PageCloud, a new web design tool, has been announced for launch later this year. It’s appeared on a wave of more intelligent CMS/design tools that arguably include the likes of Squarespace and The Grid.

As a digital agency where our services include web design and development it’s expected that we would hold a negative view of such tools that empower businesses to bring in-house the services that we offer; reducing the market in which we operate.

But while we have some misgivings about what these tools offer and how they’re likely to be used we’ve never feared their existence. We feel there will always be businesses that require more expert knowledge and bespoke solutions than automated tools can provide.

The good stuff

For businesses unable to or uncomfortable with paying agency rates these tools offer them an alternative route to launching their own website. These types of individuals/companies would be unlikely to ever hire an agency so “website builders” provide them with a cheap but professional alternative.

In the past these kind of services would result in a fairly basic website or provide a library of good quality, but frequently seen, themes for their users to choose from. This meant that an agency would be able to differentiate themselves by offering unique and bespoke designs. But with PageCloud there appears to be vastly more customisation opportunities than your basic web builder; but this isn’t necessarily a good thing, as I’ll explain later.

While many website builders target non-web professionals, founder and CEO Craig Fitzpatrick states in the video above that he sees his tool initially being utilised by professional designers to implement their designs. Essentially cutting out their need to partner with developers. If this holds true then the designs produced will at the very least be professionally done, the code however is another story…

Clean code vs automated code

Is it possible to have software take an existing website or PSD and generate well formatted and optimised code?

Certainly software has improved greatly since the poor inline CSS that Dreamweaver would spit out but will PageCloud utilise semantic HTML tags correctly or adopt OOCSS methodologies to reduce the amount of repetition in the code? Just how intelligent can a machine be in these instances while delivering a fast and usable WYSIWYG editor?

As a designer/developer I’m incredibly obsessive about having clean and well optimised code. It’s not only good practice but it helps keep a website maintainable, aids in bug fixing, accessibility and makes the site faster.

The code might not be a big concern for users of PageCloud as anyone using it is doing so to avoid having to code, but they will notice if the code it outputs leads to a slow website. This might be why PageCloud has chosen to host their websites on Amazon, as their huge infrastructure will help mask code inefficiencies.

But to be honest bad code is only something I and other developers would likely see as a problem so long as the website appears as expected the general populous is pretty happy. But there is one feature of PageCloud that could get some in trouble.

Unintelligent stealing

In the launch video for PageCloud you can see Craig import the Apple website directly from the web for the software to work its magic and offer an editable version for the user to start working on. He then removes the Apple branding, alters some text and imagery and apparently has a new website ready to launch.

While a professional designer can gauge the difference between stealing a design and being influenced by one the average man on the street isn’t as aware that designs, images and text are all copyrighted material that if reproduced could lead to more than a slap on the wrist.

A novice designer may very well take a design and make enough changes to the different elements so that it does become something new. But will the software save those less aware users from themselves who without understanding the consequences could copy the site of a direct competitor and launch with only a change to the logo. If this happens the original site owner won’t be pleased and has grounds to take legal action.

Unending blandness

There is already a discussion raging that many new websites launched have become stale and unoriginal with many websites adopting the same layouts and including common elements such as large banner imagery, ghost buttons and flat colours.

When a style becomes so popular it can be tough to break out of that mould as a designer, especially if a client’s personal likes and dislikes are being swayed by what they see elsewhere online.

In creating a system like PageCloud where other websites can be duplicated and launched means that we will only find the web becoming even blander with each new site looking like the last. While this might provide an opportunity to those able to break out and do something original it can be tough to convince clients to do this if they see something else working well for their competitors.

Quick and easy scamming

We’ve all seen those emails pretending to be from the bank or PayPal that make some claim to entice you to click the link provided and enter your personal details.

Depending on how experienced you are on the web you might recognise this scam as soon as it drops in your email, when you visit the link or only when it’s too late and you’ve had your identity stolen.

When people are drawn in by the email the fact the website doesn’t look exactly like the one they recognise can be a red flag and they drop out, saving themselves. In such instances these scammers could do better and build something closer to the original but in doing so they increase their costs.

But with PageCloud for a small monthly fee they could get an exact clone of the website they want at the push of a button and scam enough people before PageCloud or Amazon realise and take the site down. While PageCloud isn’t offering anything a scammer couldn’t already do, and certainly hasn’t been built with this thought in mind, it is offering a quicker and cheaper way for scammers to dupe people.

Many other questions

Without access to the software and no in-depth examples it’s difficult to get an idea of how PageCloud will work in all instances and what features it will provide. How much control would it offer SEO customisation? Is E-Commerce limited to iframe embeds from other tools? How easy is it to export the website in the future? If you miss a payment is the site lost forever?

These questions aren’t unique to PageCloud they exist for any website whether it’s built bespoke by an agency or using a content management system. Unfortunately some clients don’t know what questions to ask and so get locked into a system that doesn’t offer the functionality they require.

Is the role of an agency dying?

With so many cheaper “web builder” alternatives cropping up is the future of agencies like Bronco sealed? I don’t think web agencies will automatically be replaced by these tools as there will always be a place for agencies willing to adapt and offer services which these tools cannot. Or there are clients who understand the value of employing experts to help them succeed online.

While we might be bigging ourselves up we have to believe our collective knowledge allows us to create websites that take into account the specific requirements of a client or business and that the resulting website has a greater chance of succeeding than one that utilises another sites design as a starting point or is based on a commonly used theme.

We wait with interest to see how PageCloud will impact the industry.