The Internet is more popular than ever and any business that is not online is losing out to its competitors. With many businesses and individuals now being aware of the tremendous power of the Internet, it has become very important for them to find a suitable web designer to carry out their project.
Unfortunately, the success of the Internet has also given the opportunity for unqualified and unprofessional web designers to market their services making it very difficult for clients to determine to best web designer for them. If your web site is made by a bad web designer, it can have a detrimental effect on your business and cost you dearly!
What Makes a Bad Web Designer?
Bad web designers are everywhere and they are able to dupe clients into giving them their business because most clients don’t know the difference between a good designer and a bad one. Even directories of ‘approved’ web designers found on the Internet return nothing but incompetent web design ‘wannabies’ whom given half the chance will provide you with a website that will make your competitors very happy indeed. Here are the main things that indicate a bad web designer:
* Lots of animated gifs on their pages
* Overuse of Flash and JavaScript
* Unflattering/ clashing colours
* Badly written content
* A table based layout
* Shoddy graphics
* No mention of web standards or accessibility
* A website that does not validate at
http://validator.w3.orgWhat Makes a Good Designer?
Now you know the danger signs when you’re looking at the website of a designer you are considering. Here is a list of factors that indicate the designer may be worthy of you time:
* A well chosen, attractive colour scheme
* A clean, crisp, easy to navigate layout
* A CSS based layout
* Mentioning web standards and accessibility
* Well written, clear and concise content
* A web site that validates at
http://validator.w3.orgAs well as the factors listed here, the designer should maintain good communication with the client at all times. They should treat the project as if it is their own and endeavour to surpass all of the client’s expectations.
Where Can I Find a Good Web Designer?
One of the best ways to find a designer is to look on the major Internet search engines such as Google or MSN. However, be careful because the results supplied by these search engines will list hundreds of thousands of results and finding a really good designer amongst them could be difficult. Click through some of the results that sound suitable and subject them to the criteria already mentioned above.
There are numerous directories on the Internet that contain links to web design companies. Some of these directories claim to only link to ‘approved’ web designers, but don’t be fooled into hiring a web designer from one of these directories. In reality almost any site can be included into these directories and inclusion does not mean the designers are reputable or reliable. There are probably many good designers in these directories but finding them amongst the list of bad ones could take some time! Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, but be aware that inclusion into to most directories means little.
One thing to take into account when hiring a web designer is location. Due to the nature of the Internet you could hire a web designer anywhere in the world but keep in mind that if there are any problems you may wish to meet face to face. However, if you find a designer you are sure is suitable for you and they are located in another country don’t be afraid to give them a try.
A final word of warning about choosing a web designer; beware of hiring a web designer just because a friend or acquaintance has recommended them. By all means check their website and see what you think but just because your friend is happy does not mean they have a good website. Your friend could be blissfully unaware of the damage being caused by their badly designed website.
Andrew Ward is a professional web designer from the UK. He is an advocate for web standards and is working on
http://www.realdesignnetwork.com to try and help promote web standards and standards based web designers.
His personal site is
http://www.2scopedesign.co.uk
