Every day when I am surfing the internet I come across a website advertising someone who calls them self a “Web Developer” or “Web Designer”. When I come look at these sites I start looking for core aspects of their website which give off their skills and how much of a Developer/Designer they are.
It annoys me to say that most of the websites I come across offering web design/web development are made by people who are completely clueless about all aspects of building a website. These are the people I call the cowboys.
The cowboys are the people who will build you a website for £50. It may look good but it won’t conform to any web standards. Accessibility won’t even be in the developers/designers vocabulary and it’s more than likely doing to be a Photoshop cutout or Dreamweaver/Frontpage WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).There both as bad as each other.
5 years ago I have to admit I was one of these people but I didn’t expect to get any clients it was more something I did for friends and for free. But I have come a long way since then and Web Standards and Accessibility are at the core of any website I make. But they aren’t the only things which need to be taken into account when building a website. HCI (Human Computer Interaction) is an aspect which very few designers take into account when building a website. They work on the concept of: it looks pretty or it’s artistic. But that is found in all designers in all areas where they are required it’s why we employ them. It’s then down to the problem solvers to turn it into something which is user friendly.
Recently I came across a website and this person claimed to have built websites professionally for a career. Yet they were working with Photoshop cutouts and WYSIWYG HTML generated by Dreamweaver in tables (Tables are a BIG NO for layouts).
I also found this little gem of a quote:
“Recently I have begun to encode my web sites in PHP and MySQL so I can bring databases into my web sites for catalogues, profiles and more.“
Firstly lets start on the wording of Bringing databases into my website. I’m sorry but I have never heard of bringing a database into a website. You use a combination of SQL and a server side language to retrieve data from within a database table. Secondly “encode my web sites in PHP and MySQL“. Encode: The process of compressing audio or video
I don’t see where PHP or MySQL relates to this definition. And MySQL is the database application not a language. SQL is the language used to communicate with databases such as MySQL, SQL Server and PostgreSQL.
I just feel that too many people are getting ripped off/conned by these cowboy Web Designers/Web Developers. A cheap website will never/rarely be a good website.
Anyone can make a website but it takes skill and knowledge to make a good website!
Just because a website looks good it doesn’t mean it’s a good website there is A LOT more to it than a few pretty pictures!