Jan 19 2006
In order to provide the best possible services to our clients, I try to read up on web design and development trends, techniques, technology and so on as often as time allows. A couple of months ago I read a newsletter (one of several that I receive frequently in my inbox) that had me shaking my head from start to finish.
The author, Sydney Johnston, who admittedly I know little about, is a marketer. She has the typical marketer website: no design, lots of big text and endlessly scrolling pages. What she wrote in her article can basically be summed up in one sentence: You need to learn how to design sites yourself. Her reason? Because sites are made of two things: pictures and text. She then goes on to list 3 ways to build a website:
- Buy a template
- Buy site-making software
- Pay a web designer
Unfortunately, for the most part, Ms. Johnston gives a lot of misinformation.
Buy a template... just like XXXX number of people
Templates aren't evil. They haven't and won't ever put designers out of business. But they are generic solutions that are created to fit ANY business. Chances are, the template one buys, 10 others have bought as well. So much for a company being unique! But there is one small thing that I agree with Ms. Johnston on: Templates can be a waste of time (and money) for you if you don't know what you're doing. So it ends up being more costly in the end. It's like buying a book on fixing your plumbing. You can read the book (or multiple books) frontwards and backwards, but that doesn't mean you'll fix the plumbing perfectly in a day or two.
Buy web design software, and miss out on some important things
And since we're talking about learning by books, picking up a book on how to learn Dreamweaver (as Ms. Johnston has) or GoLive or the HTML Editor of your choosing does, as she states, involve a learning curve. The same is true for any complex, professional level application. But learning web design software does not make one a web designer. Aside from missing out on basic design principles, there are other issues that are required of a web designer. Some technical, some not. Continuing with the book on plumbing example, reading 20 books on plumbing does not make me a plumber.
Hire a designer
When it comes to the facts on hiring a professional web designer/developer, this is where Ms. Johnston is seriously misleading her audience. She starts by saying that hiring a designer can be expensive. Well, yes that's true. But that depends on what features you want your site to have, among other things. She's uses her personal example of having a goal of building two websites a week for one year. In her particular case, yep, that is definitely ultra-expensive. (Why she wants to do that in the first place is another topic I have no answer for.) But how many business owners looking to have a website are going to do that? Her next point is also a bit off-track.
Every time you want to make a change on your site, you must wait on a designer to make the changes. This is expensive and can be time consuming, if the designer is busy with multiple clients.
If you want control of your site, you can have it. And you don't have to be trained in HTML or any other funky web language. If you hire a good web development company, they can implement some sort of a content management system, or CMS, which allows you to edit text and images on your website. Such a system may not come as cheap as you'd like, but it will save you money in the long run. Next she goes on to say that "most web designers are focused on looks and appearance, rather than functionality or sales." If that were true, some of us in this industry would rarely have repeat clients. But I can see why she or anybody else would say that. The truth is, there are web designers out there who could care less about functionality or results - they just want to make a site that looks cool. However, there are some of us that do understand that design in general - not just web design - is much, much deeper than aesthetics. And let's not forget all the goodness of coding an accessible site. While I'm sure that Ms. Johnston was trying to empower new entrepeneurs with what she deemed valuable insight, she unfortunately gave poor information. In the end, good web designers or developers will work hard to create a great site for you that does more than just look nice. And though it can be a bit of an investment up front, hiring the right person or team will prove to be worth it.