A week after I graduated college, I started my first job as an account coordinator at Symmetri. Coordinating conference calls, sending meeting recaps, proofreading PowerPoints and managing the content on my clients' websites occupied the early weeks and months of my career in marketing.

Managing website content stands out among the administrative tasks listed above. Having an entry-level employee perform simple executional tasks is expected. Assigning an entry-level employee to alter the appearance and content of a client's website, however, is surprising and maybe even a little too bold.

Websites are the primary medium for how our clients disseminate information about their companies and product offerings to existing and prospective customers. Assigning this heavy responsibility to an entry-level employee like myself, a twenty-two-year-old who was completely green to the world of website development, probably sounds audacious.

After completing a double major in strategic communications and English writing, I was well-versed in the rhyme scheme of iambic pentameter and the dynamics of oral argument-ethical dimensions, but was ignorant about the components and technicalities required to make a website run properly. Reading HTML and JavaScript was just as foreign to me as reading a Mandarin transcription.

Despite my lack of experience and knowledge in the world of website development, I was able to upload blog content, revise the text on websites, swap out imagery and build out additional content with ease - no expansive technical understanding required. This can be attributed to the easy-to-use and intuitive interface of Drupal.

Drupal is an open-source content-management system that is used for all of our clients' websites here at Symmetri. Drupal websites allow for users with no knowledge or experience in website development to access the back end of their websites and make updates quickly and intuitively.

The screenshot below shows an example from our client Carestream Health's website. This is the back end of the Drupal content management system, where users have the capability to edit and format text.

This is where Drupal CMS users have the capability to edit format and text. 

Drupal's CSS editor allows for users to underline, bold and size text according to the user's preferences. Below, you can see how this section of text appears to the external website visitor. The text's format, color and font were all dictated by the user within Drupal's CSS, not by writing code. 

This is an example of how the above text appears to the external website visitor. 

Most of our clients here at Symmetri maintain and update their websites independently on an ongoing basis. Our clients gain this knowledge through our Drupal tutorial where they receive training on how to maintain their website following its deployment. 

Having the ability to maintain a website saves time and money for both parties: our clients and our agency. Instead of wasting time with emails and phone calls explaining new updates, clients have the capability to update their sites independently. With Drupal, our clients are able to keep the content on their websites fresh and relevant efficiently and effortlessly.