Misleading web designers

[jdiben]

I have been coming across a lot of poorly designed websites. When someone is designing their own site that's fine but the websites I am referring to are the ones with a "created by kickass webdesigns" link at the bottom. You click on the link and the web design company has an awesome website. You check out their portfolio and all the sites they designed look like crap. Who designed the web design companies website, obviously they didn’t do it. They just give the rest of us a bad name.

I am not referring to any WebProWorld members (none that I’ve noticed anyway). This is just something I have been noticing as I browse the web.

[carbonize]

Originally Posted by jdiben

I am not referring to any WebProWorld members (none that I’ve noticed anyway). This is just something I have been noticing as I browse the web.

With over 20,000 members I bet you are refering to quite a few to be honest. I made this comment in a different thread about how people call themselves web designers when all they can do is use Frontpage and have no understanding of HTML. These designers usually also seem blissfully unaware that there are other web browsers out there other than IE.

[redcircle]

Or those that seem to break all the webdesign no no's because they are learning from an html design book from 5 years ago.

[vwebworld]

Well, I happen to use FrontPage...

...and it works for me. FP, Dreamweaver,
Flash... these are the tools
with which website are created.

I started with FP because I had a concept
of what I wanted the website to "look like"
so a WYSIWG program worked. I "designed"
from the "look" back.

Now (years later) I have a better understanding
of the "stuff" behind the look... but I still do
use FP.

The results should be judged not by the tools
to create it, but by the impact, usability, and
the ability of the website to achieve its' goals/purpose.

~Roland
looking forward to FP 2003

[jdiben]

I have seen excellent sites created with FP, DW and text editors, I have also seen terrible ones created with the same tools. My original point is that if you cant recreate the quality of your own site for your customers either hire someone who can or change your line of work.

Originally Posted by Carbonize

With over 20,000 members I bet you are refering to quite a few to be honest

I am sure you're correct, I just cant recall anyone specifically.

Joe

[mysticlighthouse]

Also, it is imperative to take into account clients’ budgets. We have yet been able to design a site which is like our homepage because no one has the cash… most of the people that come to us want to know what they can get for $100… normally I would turn these people away, but because of the economy, there are so many of them. All of them do add up to a good amount of money, but the question comes to mind… is it worth it? A little profit is sure better than none at all. I’ve stopped putting things in my portfolio because I don’t want to associate my company with the work being done (for $100 mind you)… but if that is what the customer wants… that’s what they get.

[voodooboy]

I disagree regarding "budget" when it comes to design. The fee should be based upon the amount of content within the site. (Keep in mind I am speaking of design not database integration or the like) If a client comes to me with a budget, I first listen to everything they want; I then look at the amount of content going into the site. I then go back to the client and explain to them what they can expect to receive based upon their budget and needs. I design to the budget but put out a quality product. If I can not guarantee a quality product, that would meet or exceed industry standards (as far as design is concerned), I won't take the project. My $600 dollar sites look like my $2000 dollar sites minus the programming integration, flash, etc. I don't believe that if a client only has $100 dollars you should only spend an hour on it and say, "Here you go, this is what you can afford. Bye." and leave them with something that could have been done in MS Word. My standards and reputation as a designer stand on every product I put out. I don't throw out crap and then pretend I didn't do it. That is unfair to the client and unfair to your industry. If you can't display your work on your site, regardless of what someone paid for it, then you need to reconsider your career.

And let’s get one thing clear. This topic has nothing to do with what application you use to create web sites. I know people who use FrontPage, Dreamweaver, BBEdit, HomeSite, GoLive and so on and so on... Anyone can create a site using any of the above applications and it could still come out looking like total crap; or it could be incredibly awesome.

Design is a gift. Some people spend their life drawing stick figures (which is not necessarily a bad thing), while others sketch like Picasso. The web sites that have multi-colored text and a ton of flashing .gif's are the stick people. The others are Picasso, or knock-offs from people that steal others designs.

The question should be, as professional designers, would you design "other designers" web sites and why?

Look forward to seeing your responses.

[tiffglaze]

Scott Brinkerhoff you have captured the whole "big picture" of what the web design industry should be about!

Well done, an excellent post that should be read by every person involved in selling a web design service!

A thought - The stick people allow the Picasso's to shine!

Regards
Tiffglaze

[carbonize]

I readily admit that I'm totally useless at the design part, code is my forte. I usually look at other sites or web templates for inspiration then code my own versions of them from the ground up, Changing parts to suit miy, or my clients, tastes.

[tiffglaze]

Sorry - I posted my message twice - just writting over it.

Tiffglaze (No-1 Everywhere! if you search for Tiffglaze that is :)

[mm99]

You see it all the time. There used to be this guy in the forums that "claimed" to be a designer. He had placed his page in the critique area and the only thing worse than his site was his portfolio. Then he complained about all the bad reviews. I advised him that he might look into using some available free templates if he wanted to try his had at web design. He even emailed me letting me know he was available if I needed help (cringe). It was a real hoot!

One thing I see along the same lines I see over and over again, are designers that claim to include SEO work with their service, and here they are in the forums with their sites seeking advice on how to get their site listed. When you look at the source code, it's very apparent that they no nothing at all about the service they "offer".

I've seen sites that devote a whole page talking about the seo services they offer and how important it is and here they are in the forums asking us why they are having problems getting listed anywhere.

Just my 2 sense worth...

peace...Paul

[janeth]

I agree with every ones post.
But the only person that can decide about who stays in business and who goes out of business is the customer.

It is the customer's job to find out if the seo site ranks for any good key words and also what is page ranking on his on site.

It is also the customers job to find out how good a designer is before they hire him. I will design the front page of the website for the customer to look at before he gives me the first Penney. I have had customers steal my designs and then not pay but that is life.

It takes more then just doing design work. You have to have a top notch customer service department also.
You have to answer your emails asap and try to show that you want the customers business.

[mysticlighthouse]

I agree that you shouldn't just churn out crap for the sake of a buck... but when you deal with large clients such as BoA... you don't want to put a lot of these $100 sites on your portfolio, because with your large clients it make look like you aren't up to par. No matter how good they are, for $100, they aren't going to look and function as well as a multi-thousand dollar project. PERIOD. I want to help these people that don't have the money, but hey, for $100 there isn't as much incentive to do elite work. I would never pop out a page in anything that wouldn't pass W3C or anything like that, but the level won't be as good as a corporate website.

[Sualdam]

I think you're all being a bit prissy about this :)

Take a look at this site (nothing to do with me at all):

https://www.cartridgeco.co.uk/

Now, I bet this is the sort of site you are talking about.

However, I have happily purchased online from these people and the service is excellent.

Is the web really supposed to consist of designs that everyone approves of? Could that ever really happen?

[mm99]

What we have for the most part been discussing are designers that claim to be web designers that can't design websites. This is a site that is poorly designed. I'm sure they would do much better if they had a better looking site. Here's one that another member came across. It ranks #2 under "wreath":

http://www.e-wreath.com/

Ya gotta love those animations. I really dig the dude palyin' his banjo on the rockin' chair. But look in the lower right hand corner and it says "Maine Web Dezign". Click it. More of the same. At the bottom of the page, they proudly list their credentials.

It's people who claim to be designers and don't know the first thing about it that kill me. There are just to many people that learn a little html and think they're in business. It don't work that way.

peace...Paul

[alienzhavelanded]

I agree with Scott. Every site I do is like my baby. If you like this stuff as much as me, then you feel the same way. This is regardless of how much I'm being paid to make it. I put my best into everything, even for $100. One of my personal faves I did for free and it looks great.

Not putting 100% into it because of a dollar sign is just stupid. Even more so if you take the money and then aren't even proud enough of the work to display it. Didn't your parents always tell you to do the best at whatever you do? Mine did, at least when they weren't buzzing you silly Earthlings with their saucer.

The Martian

[dean]

When you see a bad design like that, sometimes it's the perfect opportunity to land a new client. It's how I got one.
The trucking company had such a poorly designed website, it was easy to tactfully and reasonably point out things like multiple spelling and grammar errors, inappropriate content, bloated graphics, etc. They paid good money for their site. The computer repair shop that originally made the site had an impressive portfolio. What they ended up with was horrible. Now they are my client. The site I made for them is far from perfect, but I killed the background midi, changed the top graphic from something that looked like cooltext and about 250,000 bytes, killed the news and weather and horoscope, changed the colors to match the company trucks, added meta description, and other things too numerous to mention. It still needs a lot of work, but at least they finally got a response, (several), after 2 years with the other site and not a single response.

Dean
Champion Service, Inc

[simonm]

All the above, so true. One of the web sites I manage had a design so awful that it was an embarrassment to the portfolio - the reason it was there was the PR director had a friend who ran a web design company. I wouldn't touch them because their own site, though a marvel of flash was unusable. Word came down from above - the CEO no less - that they were going to be the designers - it took them 6 months! That CEO has since gone, the new CEO's comment was why is the main corporate web site such a joke, his words were more pointed, it took 6 hours to replace the old site - fortunately I had a replacement waiting for just such an opportunity!

[le_gber]

Hi all,

Very interesting post :).

I think that the origin of the problem is that the tools like FP and DW make building website an easy job. Or at least it's the feeling that people have when they try to built a page using these tools.

Oooh press a button and got a table, ooooh press another one and got an image ...

Anybody can do a table, put images all around and text in the middle. That was ok 6-8 years ago but is not acceptable today (or I least I do not beleive it is). The things that today's web designers need to consider are of course the look of a page but also the site's navigability, the browser and screen res. compatibility, the accessibility of the page (at least a minimum), the validity of the code (even if I do not validate my code it is well formed and won't crash in old browser or text only browser).

I also strongly believe that the designer or firm that produce a website nowadays should know about search engine optimisation. OK having an all flash website is cool - but what's the use if nobody can find it using a SE. OK having 50 words per page is nice to give a flavour of your company to your visitor - but why didn't you use 250 words or more and why isn't the page optimised (h tags, kwds, and the like) to help the page rank better?

What customers are after is website that is looking nice, a website that get results and enquiries or sales and a website that give them back the money they invested in it.

What visitors are looking for is a website that doesn't crash in their browser, a website that do not require plugin download before being able to view it, and a website that is easy to use and fast to load.

The job of today's web designer is to provide all that!

Leo

[simonm]

I would agree but for your last comment:

The job of today's web designer is to provide all that!

The web has perhaps moved on so we need to look at expertise - the SEO expert might be useless at design, the content has to come from somebody who understands the point of being on the web. There are technical aspects such as screen size, what about statistics gathering - do we get the web designer doing this? Negotiating with the CEO, not a job for a techie.

The term should be
The job of today's web manager is to facilitate all that!

[voodooboy]

I have to agree with Simon. There seems to be a misconception with the term "web designer". A designer is just that, a designer. He is not a programmer, copy editor, SEO expert, or DB administrator. The designer is a designer. I have been designing for 18 years, and have been designing for the Internet since '95.

I now tutor young folks on Internet use, programming and design. I have one young man that has a list about as long as my arm of everything he wants to learn. Everything from design to Flash, C#, PHP, Perl, MySQL, Oracle, .NET and LAN Network administration. I sat him down and explained to him that learning all this is great. And I will help him all I can. But I also had him take the list and circle the one thing that he really got pleasure out of doing. Was it the programming? The administration? The database configuration? You guessed it. He circled design. With that I told him to focus on that. Master design first. Network with people who can do all the other stuff, and build an enterprise with that network of talents. Then, he could start learning all the other stuff.

You have one true gift. You find that gift and then find people with gifts that can compliment your own. You can know it all, but you certainly can't do it all and keep your sanity. At least I can't. I hate programming. I can do it, but I hate it. So I let someone with that expert ability do it for me. The same with copy editing, database development and SEO. I can do more projects and make more money by networking with those that compliment my abilities. I am a "web designer". Not a programmer, an SEO expert, or a database administrator. And I like it that way.

This post started with talking about misleading web designers and has gone all over the board. I would still be interested in knowing "If you would design another designer’s web site." And why?

For me the answer is NO.

I have had other designers tell me they were too busy working on clients sites to design their own sites. I think that is a crock! I am busy with client’s sites. I get regular work and keep pretty busy but have "made" the time to design and RE-design my company site 6 times. I have flat out refused to design other designer’s sites because I believe they should stand on their own abilities and use those abilities to represent themselves and their company. If I design a programmers or SEO companys’ site and they request information on their site regarding web "design", I will only do it if I am the contractor for the designs produced through that company. They can do all the programming or whatever they do, but I do the design work and provide the graphics and layout. I stand behind my design, but I also stand on principle. And I will not help someone misrepresent their abilities within my own industry.

I look forward to your opinions.

[voodooboy]

mysticlighthouse said:

"I agree that you shouldn't just churn out crap for the sake of a buck... but when you deal with large clients such as BoA... you don't want to put a lot of these $100 sites on your portfolio, because with your large clients it make look like you aren't up to par. No matter how good they are, for $100, they aren't going to look and function as well as a multi-thousand dollar project. PERIOD. I want to help these people that don't have the money, but hey, for $100 there isn't as much incentive to do elite work. I would never pop out a page in anything that wouldn't pass W3C or anything like that, but the level won't be as good as a corporate website."

You are right. A $100 dollar site is not going to function like a multi-thousand dollar site. But for a multi-thousand dollar budget, you better be doing a hell of a lot more than html coding and graphic buttons. We are talking design here. By design standards, you shouldn’t be able to tell your $100 dollar site from your $1000 dollar site. Functionality wise: secure sections, flash animated navigation, database integration or custom backend administration; no they are not going to compare. But I show my $1000-$10,000 clients ALL my work; even the $100 sites. Why? Because my design standards warrant it. The $100 dollar sites may not have all the functionality and options found in a larger site. But they should sure look like they could.

And I'll say it again with no offense intended, as I am saying it to everyone. If your credibility doesn't create enough incentive for you to put out "Elite Effort" into all your work, regardless of profit, then you should reconsider calling yourself a designer and stick to something people can't see, like core programming.