Jack,
I'm a graphic artist - but I don't design websites.
I had a web designer do the initial building of my site and then I do the updates.
You can learn easily how to add graphics, pages, text, etc. without having to know 'code'.
Dreamweaver is the program I use.
It allows you to see the page in the 'Design' mode - or to see all the freaking code in 'Code' mode.
I almost exclusively work in Design mode.
Jim Potts is who you need to talk to.
He designs sites and manages a bunch of them for his clients.
I'm sure he'd have valuable input.
Jim