White Paper - Finding the Right Web Designer

These days, it seems that everyone knows someone who designs web sites. Whether done professionally or on the side, membership in the global web development community has grown by leaps and bounds as the business world has embraced the need for an internet presence over the last decade.

Job quality and professional standards fluctuate wildly within the web development community, as the availability of professional design tools such as Adobe's Creative Suite ensures that just about anyone has the tools at their disposal to create a basic web site, and the barrier for entry is further lowered by the wealth of instructional material freely available on the internet. Sorting through the dense jungle of individuals and development firms to find a perfect fit for your web project can be a daunting task, due both to the technical challenges inherent in your project and the sheer number of companies and individuals claiming to be experts.

When searching for a web designer, you must first identify the mission and target audience of your proposed web site. Will it advertise your newly minted small business? Will it allow you to sell products from your existing business over the web? Will it allow you to share photos of your kids, your hobbies, or your friends?

Armed with the answers to these types of questions, you can begin to select a firm or an individual that meets your artistic and technical needs as well as your budget. Whether you choose to go with a professional design firm or an individual who moonlights as a freelance developer, you'll want to make sure that your designer of choice adheres to professional web standards as set forth by the W3C.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international conglomerate wherein member groups, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop and implement professional standards for web design. Founded in 1994 by the inventor of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, W3C aims to standardize the underlying code that makes up a web site in order to improve efficiency and accessibility across multiple platforms.

What does this mean to you? Plenty, depending on whether you're talking about properly coding for Search Engines, supporting multiple browsers and reaching the widest possible audience, and building your web site with an eye towards scalability and the future.

Since the web is a relatively young phenomenon, and since the associated technologies evolve at a rapid pace, many designers 'wing it' on various technical issues, the theory being that as long as the visual component is pleasing to the customer, what's under the hood really doesn't matter. This line of reasoning was acceptable in the early days of the web, as, in its infancy, the internet was little more than a collection of personal photo sites and the rambling of the earliest bloggers. Today however, how a site is designed, coded, and marketed is of the utmost importance, particularly if you're concerned with features like search engine rankings (which can translate directly into revenue in some cases).

While all of the technical considerations of a web site are beyond the scope of this document, a few of the most important questions to ask your prospective designer are as follows:

1. Are your designs table-based or CSS-based? (CSS is standards-compliant and provides for greater accessibility, quicker updates, more visual flexibility, and higher search engine rankings)

2. Are your designs heavily Flash-based, and if so, how do you optimize for search engines?

3. Do crucial aspects of your design 'break' if a user doesn't have Javascript or Flash installed? (Javascript and Flash are certainly useful tools on any web site, however, many designers overuse them, particularly in regard to navigation. For example, if your site navigation is Flash-based, users who don't have Flash installed, or have an incompatible version, will not be able to navigate through your site as intended).

4. Do your designs scale and translate to dynamic, content-driven sites? (The days of static, never-changing web pages are over, and trustworthy developers will have a good knowledge of the many Content Management Systems currently available for powering dynamic web sites)

5. Do your designs rely on proprietary technologies like Microsoft's ASP web framework? (Open source web platforms are cheaper to deploy/maintain, easier to extend, and much more powerful than vendor-specific software)

To summarize, building a web site, whether for home or business use, is often not as simple as sending all your pictures to your cousin Earl and seeing what he comes up with in a weekend with FrontPage or Dreamweaver. Whether you choose to go with a freelance web master or an established design firm, it its in your best interest to ensure that your developer is familiar with and makes use of W3C standards-based design practices.

Call 678.783.1038 or e-mail our web solutions team with your questions or for more information.

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