Database Development
Today’s businesses require their websites to be quick, flexible, visually appealing, and straightforward to maintain. Kentico is an enterprise content management system (CMS) and Digital Experience Platform (DXP) that allows for many different types of templates and modules. However, how you utilize Kentico’s capabilities will determine whether your organization gets the most out of its ability to create a fast, reliable, and scalable website in the future.
This guide describes tried and true best practices for customizing Kentico templates and modules so that your organization can produce a dependable, forward-looking digital experience.
Kentico Templates and Modules have Different Functions
Kentico templates illustrate how to structure and layout your pages, while the modules are built using modular templates and are built as reusable components, such as Forms, Navigation, Dynamic Content Elements, etc., to help add functionality to Kentico websites. Templates and Modules, when combined, form the base of a scalable Kentico website tailored specifically to your needs and requirements.
Planning is Necessary Before Customizing
Prior to beginning any sort of Customization, it is incredibly important to define your Project’s goals and requirements as well as to think through the long-term goals of your Project. When you understand your business needs and the anticipation of content workflow and performance expectations for the customizations that you will be implementing, you will eliminate the majority of the time you would spend on future re-work.
Planning for Customization includes:
- A clearly defined Site Architecture
- The identification of Components that will be Reusable Items
- The establishment of guidelines to develop your designs
- The alignment of your Customizations with your Marketing and Content Strategy
By following the above mentioned steps, you will produce Clean implementations, which will require less future maintenance.
Make Use of the Principles of Reusable and Modular Design
Reusability and Modular Design are still Keys for building a Scalable Kentico Development. Reusable Items that are used to create Modular Templates will provide Consistent Designs across the Entire Website, while reducing the Amount of Time to Develop.
Advantages of using Modular Design include:
- Reduced Development Time / Increase in Speed of Creating Web Pages.
- Increased Ease of Updating Multiple Page Layouts.
- Decreased Risk of Inconsistent Design across Multiple Pages.
- Increased Scalability for Future projects.
Through the use of Modular Design, Non-technical users will also be able to Create and Update their Content more Efficiently.
Maintain Clean and Organized Template Structure
A template structure that is clean and organized helps to improve readability and maintainability. A simple, clean template structure that is well-organized facilitates implementation of enhancements without affecting functionality that is already in place.
Follow these best practices:
- Separate the layout from the content
- Utilize consistent naming conventions
- Avoid unnecessary complexity.
- Document the logic and usage of the templates
These best practices will allow your development teams to work together effectively and reduce upon the technical debt caused by insufficient documentation.
Speed Enhancements
When users experience slow Internet connections or poor-performing pages, this ultimately translates into an unoptimised user experience and negatively affects your SEO.
To optimize for speed, you can:
- Eliminate redundancy of items
- Use caching wherever possible.
- Minimize unnecessary rendering.
- Optimize the delivery of media and content.
Efficient customization creates websites that are fast, efficient, and perform well during peak volumes of traffic.
Kentico accepted best practices and standards
Kentico defines standards and guidelines for customizing Kentico projects to ensure compatibility with future Kentico updates. Following the recommended best practices reduces the risk of upgrading and prevents conflicts with future platform updates.
Benefits of following Kentico recommended best practices:
- Easier upgrades
- Improvements in system stability.
- Less maintenance effort.
- Long-term compatibility of the platform.
Following the approved Kentico best practices will further solidify a sustainable solution.
Using Built-In Features is a Better Alternative to Development
Kentico is an excellent CMS that gives you many tools to build your site; therefore, it reduces custom development. The advantage of using built-in capabilities is that they are usually stable and easy to work with.
Examples of Built-In Capabilities in Kentico:
- Content Management
- Personalization
- Marketing Automation
- Multilingual CMS
Utilizing built-in capabilities for customization speeds up development and makes maintenance easier.
Design Custom Templates/Modules With the Future in Mind
Enterprise Web Sites Can Change Over Time. The design of custom templates/modules needs to consider what you may add in the future, i.e. Additional pages, new functionality, third-party integration, etc.
Stability for custom templates/modules:
- Add new pages and modules easily
- Integrates with third-party systems more quickly
- Supports multi-sites/multi-languages
- Long-term adaptability is achieved by planning ahead to avoid expensive redesigns when required.
- Focusing on User Experience and Accessibility
Customization should focus on the User Experience (UX) and Accessibility. By creating templates that are User Friendly (UX), you make it easier for visitors to navigate, read, and interact with your site and provide your visitors with an opportunity to interact with your site through accessibility standards.
Best Practices For Designing UX Templates
- Make use of common layouts
- Make navigation easy to understand
- Provide a Mobile Responsive Template
- Make elements user-friendly and accessible
Having enhanced usability will lead to better engagement with visitors and ultimately higher conversion rates.
Customizing Templates and Modules – Test & Validate
The key to testing is to thoroughly test custom templates/modules to ensure they will work correctly on multiple devices/browsers. Testing allows users to identify performance, usability, and compatibility issues early in the development process.
Testing, at a minimum, should include:
- Functional Validation
- Performance Testing
- Cross Browser/Device Testing
- Security/Accessibility testing
Continual testing helps guarantee high-quality, reliable implementations.
Documenting Templates/Modules for Maintenance
Properly documenting custom solutions allows teams to maintain custom solutions easily over time. By documenting the structure of templates, how modules are used, and how/why custom logic was created, teams can learn quicker, onboard easier and collaborate better.
Well-documented projects will:
- Help to simplify future enhancements
- Decrease the dependency on any individual developer
- Improve long-term maintainability
Documentation is often overlooked as an important key element of best practice.
Conclusion
The ability to customize Kentico templates/modules gives enterprises the ability to develop powerful, scalable digital experiences that are aligned with their brand. By following best practices such as modular design, optimizing performance, following Kentico design standards, and doing extensive testing, organizations increase the odds of having a successful solution over time.
By properly structuring your customization efforts, you improve your user’s experience and position your site to adapt to future growth and changes in your organization.
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