Choosing A Web Designer, What
To Look For And What To Avoid
by web development specialist Tanya Stesen
Owning and operating your own business
from day to day is a huge task in itself. Tack on the chore
of choosing a professional web designer and well it can get
overwhelming.
Choosing a web designer or developer
should not be taken lightly; a web designer is responsible
for creating and establishing your corporate identity and
online presence. Your business web site speaks for you when
you cannot.
What does your current web site design say about your
business?
Does it portray a professional, reputable business?
If not here’s a few tips for finding and selecting a web
designer.
What To Look
For
Portfolio Samples
A good web designer or design company will have an online
presence. Ask to see the designer’s portfolio and links to
some of their current web site designs. Beware of designers
that are offering web design or graphic design services with
no online presence.
Take the time to navigate the designer’s
web site and some of their client’s sites to get a feel for
their skills and also to make sure all links, navigational
features, etc. function properly. Often unskilled web
designer’s sites will have dead links, misspelled words and
other errors.
References
Most reputable web designers and companies will post client
reviews or testimonials on their web site. These are a good indication
that the designer is experienced and that past clients have
been satisfied with their work.
Beware of a long list of
testimonials with no client information such as company name
or a link to the web site. Most web designers will link
their client’s testimonials to their sites so you can verify
that they are in fact a happy customer.
If the designer’s testimonials aren’t readily available ask,
and verify them. Call or email the references and ask how
their experience was with the designer and if they were
satisfied with the work. This may seem like a lot of work
but having a web site professionally designed is a financial
investment and an important one to your business and it’s
wise to do your homework before jumping into anything.
Contact Information
Now this might seem like common sense but check the
designer’s web site for clear contact information such as a
physical address and telephone number. A designer displaying
only their email address and website address as contact
information is not very credible and you should request and
confirm the designers contact information prior to paying
for or putting a deposit down on your design services.
Look for Familiar Logos/Affiliations
Displaying familiar logos such as credit card logos (Visa,
MasterCard and so on), PayPal verified logos and other
affiliation logos such as groups and organizations lends
credibility to the web site and the company.
Who Is
No that’s not an incomplete statement it’s the name of a
directory that you should familiarize yourself with. Using
the WHOIS database you can search and find out information
about an existing domain name such as the owner, how long
it’s been registered and other useful information. The WHOIS
database will provide you with the contact information of
the person or organization that registered the domain name
you’re inquiring about.
Check out your prospective designer if you have doubts and
verify that the information listed matches the contact
information they are giving you. Beware of designers that
have blocked or privately registered their domains to
prevent consumers from accessing their information. With
that being said we must also state that legitimate companies
sometimes block their domains, usually in an attempt to
prevent spam but it’s not something we suggest.
Compliance with W3C and CSS Standards
This is often the most overlooked detail but the most
critical. Most Web documents are written using markup
languages, such as HTML or XHTML. These languages are
defined by technical specifications, which usually include a
machine-readable formal grammar (and vocabulary). The act of
checking a document against these constraints is called
validation, and this is what the Markup Validator does.
Validating Web documents is an important step in web design.
Unfortunately there are unscrupulous web designers out there
that don’t code to or even know the standards and their
clients pay dearly for it. Check your designer's site against
the standards, if their site doesn’t validate there’s a good
chance yours won’t either.
Click here to
check our web sites compliancy with W3C
Standards
