People Love Perch: Andrew Rossborough

We love to hear how much People love Perch and this interview is with Andrew Rossborough, Lead Designer at SOLID.

Tell us a bit about yourself:

I’m Andrew Rossborough and I’m lead designer at SOLID. We’re a small team of creatives based in Belfast who work closely with local businesses as a kind of outsourced marketing department. As such, we cover all bases from branding and web design to marketing strategies and social media management. Some of our recent work has included a prospectus for a local college and a portfolio piece for a team of outfitters who work with prestigious London designers and hotels.

What sites have you used Perch for recently?:

Belfast City Vineyard – A city centre church with a growing ministry and expanding congregation. The task of improving communication within a busy church body was made easier by Perch’s simplicity and flexibility.

Donnelly O Neill Architects – Belfast based architects who provide high quality, sustainable designs for a wide range of sectors. We are in the process of replacing an old custom built system with Perch, due to its reliability and robustness.

Barton Evangelical Church – A vibrant Canterbury based church with a young and modern congregation. With resources such as audio sermons, videos, book reviews and events, Perch has proved indispensable in managing a large site with particular needs.

Why did you choose Perch?:

What first attracted me to Perch was the ability to design and build a site my way, without the restrictions imposed by other systems. Perch is so simple to just slot into a site once it’s been built that you can almost forget you’re using a CMS. Since getting to grips with Perch, however, I’ve really begun to understand the value of the product. Considering the fantastic (free) support offered by the team, a small one off payment with no ongoing management costs is perfect for me and my clients.

How did you find working with Perch?:

Installing Perch is a doddle, and the documentation provided walks you through every step. Installing upgrades, add-ons and plugins takes such little time it means it’s never something you put off, and so you always stay up to date. It’s also really easy for clients to use too. The support team is great, and it never takes long to solve an issue or find an answer. I also love how the team listens to the users and develops upgrades based on user requests and feedback.

How do the content creators/site owners find working with Perch?:

My clients love working with Perch. For training purposes, all that’s needed is a short demonstration and they quickly get the hang of things. It’s really intuitive and I never have clients ringing up asking how to do this or that. For each of my clients I’ve put together a short reference guide to help them update the site, but from what I hear it just sits on the shelf. With the introduction of Perch 2, I’ve also been able to restrict certain user groups from changing sections of the site they shouldn’t be touching, which adds to the trust the client is able to put in Perch from a security standpoint.