Making an effective website is tough. Without question. Be it for a large multinational business or just for a friend on the side, you pretty much want to achieve the same goal with every site you build – and that goal is to get your word across in a clear, cohesive manner. You want things to look nice, but most importantly you want their audience to understand what they’re overall message to them is. And from what I can tell, many Irish Web Design businesses fail in doing so.
One such company, whose name I will not mention, starts off by introducing their business and what they do by going into technical terms like “ASP.NET, AJAX, XML, XSLT, CSS”. They later go on to state that :
These technologies are combined to create vibrant site designs that are both user friendly and appealing to the eye but also highly functional for site users.
This is, in every respect, wrong. I have seen their work, and the sites they build do not fall into a “user-friendly” category nor are they “appealing to the eye”. While I don’t doubt the technical ability of this business, the fact that they try to trick their visitors into hiring them, with false claims of effectiveness, sickens me.
They divide their web design services into easily understandable packages. One for a basic website, another for an e-commerce type site, and finally one other for a real estate agent. To a prospective client, this sounds great, and I get that. But to me, what it sounds like is a 5 minute job for them, and a four figure sum for their client.
And it’s not just them. Web design, or to put it more correctly, good web design in Ireland for the most part,is missing. Web design is seen as an afterthought, something you look to get on the cheap, with no consideration for user behaviour, requirements, goals. And so you see a great deal of graphic design or print businesses tack on the fact that they do web design, made exclusively in Dreamweaver’s infamous “Design View” with the in-built “spry”‘s slowing your website down to a halt.
I’m not concluding that I would do much better than any of these businesses, but web design deserves to be thought about a bit more. Hiring a freelancer may take longer, but the benefits are great in the long run. If the designer isn’t a total ass, he will be fair about pricing. You get a better site, more personalised, and more promising for your users. You’re in control of you’re own site, you can edit when and what content you want.
Ultimately, you can go down two paths when choosing someone to build your website. Someone cheap and fast, who will hand you the keys and never look back. Or someone who takes their time, charges that bit more, but presents you with a site that you absolutely adore. You cant have both, but you know which one is best.
So, third year is well and truly finished in TI, and I am now on my ludicrously long summer break. To emphasize how long it actually is, I’m not back until September. I have no idea what will occupy my time these next three and half months, but I should really get around to looking for stuff to do..
And so far I have been doing quite well. I noticed this site was in need of a refresh, so I set about realigning it. Hopefully by making this iteration brighter, more readable (line-height & a nice font really is the key), and outlining exactly what I do, I think it can improve my visitors/clients ratio, but I guess only time can tell in that regard. I dont know if it was a mistake on my part, but the last design got me very few job opportunities. Perhaps that was for the best as I have literally been neck deep in college work until now.
Overall, third year has been quite different than the others during my time at TI. I think because of the nature of some of the modules, Exhibition & Team Project, we were definitely given more freedom, and to be honest, being left to our own devices was pretty enjoyable. I’m not saying it wasn’t hard work (far from it), but it was definitely a enlightening experience doing those 2 modules.
The Team Project we chose to do was a location-based social media aggregator, which we aptly called Social Locality. This application, which works on both desktop browsers and mobile devices, was created in the space of 12 weeks and with about a zillion lines of code. It lists the latest news, weather , tweets, flickr images on a specific county in Ireland. The project results aren’t in just yet, but I think we did reasonably well, and we got a good reaction from the people we’ve showed this to so far! Some of the other projects included a children’s website to help teach kids math, and a desktop application to help sort your movie collection. Both are very interesting ideas, and I hope they do well too.
The exhibition was something I had talked about before, but when I posted about it, it was pre-event. The 2011 Pen & Pixel Exhibition went remarkably well for us. We had extremely talented students showcasing their work on the walls of the college, and loads of visitors admiring the work. It was a bit surreal seeing this event actually happening, and it was down to our hard work that it went as successful as it had done. What I was most impressed by though, was the amount of work done behind the scenes. I cant count how many times students stayed at that college until closing time just to make sure the exhibition went well.
It’s almost a shame that its over, because it really was perhaps the highlight of college so far. All I can say further is good luck to the ingoing 3rd years organizing next years event. Its going to be a tough act to follow.
In the 14 months I’ve been officially freelancing, I’ve learned so much. I’ve had the privilege of working with some truly remarkable people and companies. When doing what I do, it’s easy to lose track of time, so when I look back at some of the first designs I’ve made I can honestly say I’m improving, but there is definitely vast room to improve. Below are a few key elements which I have tried to follow while freelancing, and hopefully an aspiring designer can learn from even one of these tips.
Simplicity is Key
The designs you make between becoming relatively familiar with Photoshop and learning to create a worthwhile design, are often the worst. Because as you start learning different techniques in Photoshop, you naturally want to exhibit them through your work. But more often than not it just adds to the clutter of web designs people start out with. Watching Jon Ive talk about Apple products helped me understand the importance of simplicity and how to avoid it. And I have definitely made this mistake on more than one occasion.
For example, gradients are nice when used properly, but subtlety is key. Using gradients that have similar colors, and that are perhaps only a few shades apart adds depth, without it looking overworked and cheap.
Familiarity is also important. When making a search form, people usually use a magnifying glass icon, because that image association is embedded our brains. It’s the same with colour. Green is for positive actions, red for warnings or excitement. These little things make seem unimportant but they really can make the difference between an alright site and a great site.
Work on your brand first
Its important to make a strong first impression when trying to find potential clients. That’s why your personal place on the web should encompass all your skills, all your ideas of what web design should be, and perhaps where you think it’s going. Don’t follow trends, set them.
If you are not able to make yourself look hire-able, how can you expect to create a site for clients who want to be. Some essential things to include on a personal site might be :
- Portfolio – Make sure this is updated as often as possible
- Services – Outline your services clearly and make sure you can do them all
- Testimonials – Ask clients for their opinion – it gives your site a bit of personality
- Contact Info – Pretty self-explanatory
Some of these sound pretty obvious, but it is surprising how many people forget the important things, especially when they are focused on making something look good, but without thinking about the end user, your missing the point of having a site in the first place.
Stay Frequent & Social
Things like Twitter and Facebook are great because they’ve brought blogging to the average Joe. They’re simple, fun and you can gain alot from it with only a few minutes of use a day. I dont have time to blog daily (or weekly for that matter), so when I have an idea, thought, or something to share, I tweet, or Share on Facebook. And the more I am active on these, more people come to my site. My SEO is fine, but I get a lot of referrals directly from Twitter and Facebook primarily because of my frequent postings on these services
Designing frequently is also important. Web Design isn’t a static career. Trends come and go, practices and frameworks are introduced weekly. Keeping up to date can set you apart from everyone else. Break the mould, and try to create a design as different as you can from the last. If you don’t have any clients right now, create something anyway, and hone your skills.
It’s not about what you want or even what the client wants
Its about what their end-user needs. A lot of clients seem to think that a 2 hour tutorial on Powerpoint gives them a creative advantage over you, but the fact is, they hired you to solve something for their users, not them. Yes, clients know more about their business, but they hired you for your expertise and you have to find a way to let them remember that. It’s alright to say no to clients, as long as you have reason to. Whether its regarding payment or a design suggestion, if they are wrong, and you know it, be straight and tell them (nicely though).They’ll thank you for your honesty.
Just remember that with every design you make, its an opportunity to better yourself. Try to create something different. Every time that you open Photoshop is a chance to improve, to do something entirely different, to experiment, because you’ll never learn otherwise. Stop when you have to, or if you think your ruining something, and do something else. Have fun with web design, it’s not meant to be serious but to grab attention and excite people.
This is my ultimate career, and I can believe I’m doing it right now. Of course I have off days, and get sick of it from time-to-time, but I play around with colours and images all day – whats not to love?
As I start writing this, its 3am and in the 9 hours since Apple introduced the iPad, and I’ve been trying to figure out why I feel let down. Everything about the event was perfect. Steve Jobs, as usual, put on an excellent show. He could sell you a used mattress and you’d be leaving happy. The device however was an utter disappointment, and the reason Apple gave for selling it is even worse.
They say they are trying to bridge the gap between the smartphone and the portable computer, that it has to excel in key things like: Browsing, Email, Movies, Music, eBooks. But Apple has forgotten that they have already made products that to these things, and they do them well.
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I always love getting information to the most important people of blogs, the readers. Theyre the ones who take time out of their day to read my blog and for that I wanted to get some input from you guys.
The browser wars is a heated-argument, but I think generally its safe to say that nearly everyone in the know hates Internet Explorer. This week, I want to know “What browser you are using right now?”. Not the browser you prefer, or the browser you use generally, but the browser that you are visiting this site on.
Vote Below
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