WordPress a CMS created with PHP has been with us for a while and has a large following. In most if not all ISP's one of their salient feature is the availability of "WordPress". It is clearly advertised as the most simplistic method in putting up a website for people with little or no programming knowledge. "Drag and Drop" is all you need to create a stunning site from myriad of professional curated templates . But the reality does not quite match that hype.

We have just handed over a website we made for a client as per request - unfinished but with all the relevant bit and pieces in place. They wanted to wrap it up themselves in Wix.
Web design sites like Wix, Squarespace et al using WordPress to sell promises of being able to put together beautiful professional-looking websites for free in a short space of time should be taken with a pinch of salt. You are informed or told it is so easy any Tom, Dick and Harry can do it regardless of how little web design and development experience they have. Be wary of such selling techniques, as in so many cases, they are too good to be true. Many other factors, apart from visuals, go into building a website. With all the plug-ins provided there are still some fundamentals you need to take into account. The most basic HTML5 page will have assets like images, audio, videos etc. etc together with the ubiquitous HTML tags that build the structure and layout. A basic knowledge of these will put you in good stead to then go and use functionalities like WordPress effectively.

As our client is learning now from hard grafting - It takes us only a few minutes to add a new feature - but somehow, it is taking them days to do likewise. They've spend considerable amount of time watching YouTube videos, getting frustrated with the design interface, and just simply not knowing the terminology specific to a particular plugin. That notwithstanding they also have to be conversant with different implementations from various ISP's. They are wasting so much time and energy that could have been deployed some where else productively.

They have ended up asking so many questions and requesting help that Ideally they should be getting from their ISP and WordPress. We literally needed to tutor them. But how can you instil to someone years of web development experience coupled with higher education qualifications. There are certain things that you can not just get from watching videos on "You Tube" - experience and education. I do respect those who are very eager to learn something new through the internet. But do not confuse being an "internet influencer in putting up makeup" to someone wanting to become conversant in designing website solely from YouTube. Most of the time you just have to do the hard grafting.