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The internet is booming. In the last year the number of company sites on the internet has grown by a third. It is now physically impossible to view every page on the net, as they are being made faster than we can see them. Companies are getting on the net and doing more trade than ever. The internet is growing fast.
So who is making all these sites? Go to Google.com and type in Web Design Companies. It found 1,700,000 related links, and theres probably more by the time you read this. If each of these pages is a web design company, there is more companies than there are people in London and New York combined!
On top of that, who here knows a little about coding? You can bet that most people here can make a "This is me and this is my dog" page and nearly all of us have a Geocities site. There must be literally millions of people who are able to create websites in the world. Tomorrows World did a special on the internet, and on their website they ran a special teaching people how to code!
The reason for this is that it is really easy to make a page. Not like Turbo and his PHP, but a straight advertisement page can be knocked up by a complete novice in days. I had a work experience guy not too long ago at my work, and I taught him how to code HTML in a week, in which, he created another 2 sites on the net.
Why am I going on about this? Well, because there are so many people allready able to code a page, and the fact that to learn it is a matter of a few days reading up on the net, should us professional web designers fear for our jobs? The industry is growing, and the number of sites that need to be made is growing, but with the likes of Dreamweaver and (the awful) Frontpage, some are doing it themselves, some are learning to code, and some are even giving it to their sons!
Thats another issue. Our generation of natural PC users and games players are fully computer literate. It's the world we and future generations have been brought up in. There are many companies where the MDs are a bit scared about "this new fangled internet thing" and give it to their kids who know more about "that kind of thing". Give it 5-10 years, and it'll be us running those companies, perfectly able to code our own sites.
So, with everyone writing their own sites and there being more web designers than ever, is there going to be enough work for us all?
Currently, the people wanting sites have no interest in learning code, they have too much to do with the running of their companies, and expect that actual companies that specialise in web design will do a better job. Even that is a risky business though. Look around the net and there are some really pro sites made by kids in their bedrooms. How is the big cheeses to know?
The future? The pro companies will start to struggle as less and less supercompanies need sites. The smaller companies will jostle for work in competition from the bedroom whizzkids, and companies will have ex-bedroom whizzkids working there, so less and less companies require sites.
We, as Web designers must remember that our jobs are under threat. We have to keep up with the latest technologies. We have to use the position that we are in to make sure that we are one better than the people who work at the companies we are fighting for, so they can feel better about spending the money with us rather than doing it themselves. We personally have to have CVs as long as our arms with skills, sites we have done and training courses so we have something over our younger competitors.
It's a tougher industry than the simplicity of the coding suggests, very volitile and instable especially in these times of infancy.
Be alert. Your country needs lerts.
So who is making all these sites? Go to Google.com and type in Web Design Companies. It found 1,700,000 related links, and theres probably more by the time you read this. If each of these pages is a web design company, there is more companies than there are people in London and New York combined!
On top of that, who here knows a little about coding? You can bet that most people here can make a "This is me and this is my dog" page and nearly all of us have a Geocities site. There must be literally millions of people who are able to create websites in the world. Tomorrows World did a special on the internet, and on their website they ran a special teaching people how to code!
The reason for this is that it is really easy to make a page. Not like Turbo and his PHP, but a straight advertisement page can be knocked up by a complete novice in days. I had a work experience guy not too long ago at my work, and I taught him how to code HTML in a week, in which, he created another 2 sites on the net.
Why am I going on about this? Well, because there are so many people allready able to code a page, and the fact that to learn it is a matter of a few days reading up on the net, should us professional web designers fear for our jobs? The industry is growing, and the number of sites that need to be made is growing, but with the likes of Dreamweaver and (the awful) Frontpage, some are doing it themselves, some are learning to code, and some are even giving it to their sons!
Thats another issue. Our generation of natural PC users and games players are fully computer literate. It's the world we and future generations have been brought up in. There are many companies where the MDs are a bit scared about "this new fangled internet thing" and give it to their kids who know more about "that kind of thing". Give it 5-10 years, and it'll be us running those companies, perfectly able to code our own sites.
So, with everyone writing their own sites and there being more web designers than ever, is there going to be enough work for us all?
Currently, the people wanting sites have no interest in learning code, they have too much to do with the running of their companies, and expect that actual companies that specialise in web design will do a better job. Even that is a risky business though. Look around the net and there are some really pro sites made by kids in their bedrooms. How is the big cheeses to know?
The future? The pro companies will start to struggle as less and less supercompanies need sites. The smaller companies will jostle for work in competition from the bedroom whizzkids, and companies will have ex-bedroom whizzkids working there, so less and less companies require sites.
We, as Web designers must remember that our jobs are under threat. We have to keep up with the latest technologies. We have to use the position that we are in to make sure that we are one better than the people who work at the companies we are fighting for, so they can feel better about spending the money with us rather than doing it themselves. We personally have to have CVs as long as our arms with skills, sites we have done and training courses so we have something over our younger competitors.
It's a tougher industry than the simplicity of the coding suggests, very volitile and instable especially in these times of infancy.
Be alert. Your country needs lerts.
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Of course not!
Oh... and you can afford it?
About £400 each.
SO how much is Dreamweaver and Fireworks then?
Holy mackrel!
Actually, I confess to using Dreamweaver occasionally, but only because it works very well with Fireworks, which I do all my design work in. However, Fireworks (and Dreamweaver) make an absolute mess of the code and I usually spend about an hour cleaning it up. Once I have all the main code in place for one page, I create standard headers and footers for all the pages, and finish off all the rest of the pages using a raw HTML editor such as 1st Page 2000 (Windows) or Quanta (Linux).
Actually, I confess to using Dreamweaver occasionally, but only because it works very well with Fireworks, which I do all my design work in. However, Fireworks (and Dreamweaver) make an absolute mess of the code and I usually spend about an hour cleaning it up. Once I have all the main code in place for one page, I create standard headers and footers for all the pages, and finish off all the rest of the pages using a raw HTML editor such as 1st Page 2000 (Windows) or Quanta (Linux).
Turbonutter wrote:
Most website companies these days, just
> start up with one or two employees and a copy of Dreamweaver. They make a site,
> it looks OK, and sell it for £2,000.
Take a look at www.hawk-eye.net for a Dreamweaver disaster. It looks like they designed it on a 21inch monitor, and god knows what browsers they checked it on cos it doesnt work in any i have!
Have you seen the HTML code that dreamweaver writes? APPALLING!!!! If I coded like that I would be out of a job by now!
Most website companies these days, just
> start up with one or two employees and a copy of Dreamweaver. They make a site,
> it looks OK, and sell it for £2,000.
Take a look at www.hawk-eye.net for a Dreamweaver disaster. It looks like they designed it on a 21inch monitor, and god knows what browsers they checked it on cos it doesnt work in any i have!
Have you seen the HTML code that dreamweaver writes? APPALLING!!!! If I coded like that I would be out of a job by now!
Well, no matter what anyone says, I consider myself to be a "professional" webdesigner, for the following reasons:
I've designed a LOT of sites, mostly purely for fun. I know the do's and dont's of designing websites. Do make them browser friendly, do make them simple, do make them easy to navigate, don't use frames, don't use layers, don't cheat with JS and CSS etc...
Designing websites is a skill that has to be learnt with practise. You have to understand the medium (HTML) and know how to bend it to get what you want without cheating. Most website companies these days, just start up with one or two employees and a copy of Dreamweaver. They make a site, it looks OK, and sell it for £2,000. The end-buyer thinks he's getting a good deal, because he went to the "professionals". However, when you actrually look at that site, you'll see the HTML'll be a mess and if you run it through Navigator, it'll just cough and die.
Don't believe me? Go to a small chain website. You'll find that they paid good money for that, but I'm sure that me, Slaveunit or Reaper could have knocked up something much better and cleaner for half the price.
I've designed a LOT of sites, mostly purely for fun. I know the do's and dont's of designing websites. Do make them browser friendly, do make them simple, do make them easy to navigate, don't use frames, don't use layers, don't cheat with JS and CSS etc...
Designing websites is a skill that has to be learnt with practise. You have to understand the medium (HTML) and know how to bend it to get what you want without cheating. Most website companies these days, just start up with one or two employees and a copy of Dreamweaver. They make a site, it looks OK, and sell it for £2,000. The end-buyer thinks he's getting a good deal, because he went to the "professionals". However, when you actrually look at that site, you'll see the HTML'll be a mess and if you run it through Navigator, it'll just cough and die.
Don't believe me? Go to a small chain website. You'll find that they paid good money for that, but I'm sure that me, Slaveunit or Reaper could have knocked up something much better and cleaner for half the price.
Not easily. A designer with the persistance and motivation to learn a wide variety of languages (LEARN, not pick out the bits of code he needs off a help site and then never look back) will always come out on top of someone struggling to make a CGI response form following a step by step tutorial.
We need to take the initiative ourselves, come up with new ideas - even if they are variations on old themes - and start putting some innovation in to the web. The casual browser could go to any one of millions of websites, why should they spend their precious time at yours? We need originality, something to make people take notice and recognise yours as a site with something special about it.
Ok, anyone can make a "me and my dog" website. Anyone can shove together a bit of CGI after following a tutorial. Anyone can make a bits of flash, or some buttons with an image generator. When I'm designing a new site, I think about these points, and say to myself "What can I do to make this site better than the others out there". I know that if I just make another basic site, following the normal principles of web design, it'll be largely ignored by the passing public and I wont get much in the way of return business.
We need to prove that we deserve the title of "professional" web designers. To consistantly prove our design skills, create innovations for the use of a site, and mix techniques to promote interactive content and create something of interest to the user.
Of course, this may not always be appropriate - a corporate site aimed at a small numbers of people who just want a basic homepage may not have the same requirements as a site whose owners are promoting a certain image or style. However, this doesn't mean we can't at least experiment in these areas.
People are always skeptical of new concepts on ideas that they're used to - the basic layout of links on the left, content on the right, title at the top, has been tried and tested and is natural for most web users. However, it does greatly restrict the number of new ideas people are willing to accept.
If one site does something different, a new idea for navigation say, then people will often say "that's just awkward, I don't like it", and go. Finding a way of incorporating new ideas while retaining the functionality of the current tested design is a challenge, and I think a designer who can succeed in doing this will stand out above the crowd - it's not an easy task, it's more than most "me and my dog" page creators could manage, and it shows skill.
In short, I think that yes, more and more people will be able to make pages, but it's those who put the time and effort in to make them really stand out who will succeed as designers. We need to be constantly striving to excel and be original, anyone who just wants to make a quick buck by learning HTML will drop well behind the standards expected..
We need to take the initiative ourselves, come up with new ideas - even if they are variations on old themes - and start putting some innovation in to the web. The casual browser could go to any one of millions of websites, why should they spend their precious time at yours? We need originality, something to make people take notice and recognise yours as a site with something special about it.
Ok, anyone can make a "me and my dog" website. Anyone can shove together a bit of CGI after following a tutorial. Anyone can make a bits of flash, or some buttons with an image generator. When I'm designing a new site, I think about these points, and say to myself "What can I do to make this site better than the others out there". I know that if I just make another basic site, following the normal principles of web design, it'll be largely ignored by the passing public and I wont get much in the way of return business.
We need to prove that we deserve the title of "professional" web designers. To consistantly prove our design skills, create innovations for the use of a site, and mix techniques to promote interactive content and create something of interest to the user.
Of course, this may not always be appropriate - a corporate site aimed at a small numbers of people who just want a basic homepage may not have the same requirements as a site whose owners are promoting a certain image or style. However, this doesn't mean we can't at least experiment in these areas.
People are always skeptical of new concepts on ideas that they're used to - the basic layout of links on the left, content on the right, title at the top, has been tried and tested and is natural for most web users. However, it does greatly restrict the number of new ideas people are willing to accept.
If one site does something different, a new idea for navigation say, then people will often say "that's just awkward, I don't like it", and go. Finding a way of incorporating new ideas while retaining the functionality of the current tested design is a challenge, and I think a designer who can succeed in doing this will stand out above the crowd - it's not an easy task, it's more than most "me and my dog" page creators could manage, and it shows skill.
In short, I think that yes, more and more people will be able to make pages, but it's those who put the time and effort in to make them really stand out who will succeed as designers. We need to be constantly striving to excel and be original, anyone who just wants to make a quick buck by learning HTML will drop well behind the standards expected..
Some can, but not most. It requires skill and style. I don't think theres much to worry about.
But as Turbonutter has proven, they can do that too....
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