So you want to be a web developer?

[yamangman]

It's a matter of business and professional etiquette I feel also. You may be the type of person why comments and documents and 'best practices' all of your work. It may not be the best way to run a business but these people do exist. They are often MBCS I find, still though many ignore the professional ramifications of the title. As a lead developer I'm often tasked with balancing the issues as you mention of the technical guys who do manage to lose site of clients wishes, yet their enthusiastic involvement in (over-)producing something might leverage certain benefits further down the line in terms of experience or intellectual property.

It's a careful balancing act to be sure.

I understand that, which is why I said I didn't disagree with anything you'd said.

The perspective is that while it's right and proper to have standards compliance, a pure design ethos and accessibility as laudable objectives, that ALL has to be tempered by the practicality of what the client wants.

As an example, there are other things that a company ought to be considering in relation to what it commissions for it's website, such as the requirements of the Companies Acts. Those requirements aren't about good design practice, or about expandability (as yamangman mentioned), or which technology to use, but mandatory legal requirements the ignoring of which could land the company in court and acquire them a fine.

Yet there was one occasion where I pointed out those requirements to a company that had commissioned a small website, and provided the exact text, page by page, they wanted on it. Their response to my pointing out they'd be committing an offence by ignoring those requirements was to ask me if I knew how many offences a company could be committing (I did), and to point out that if they worried about every one of those possible offences, they'd spend so much time worrying about the law that they wouldn't have a business. So will I please just do as I've been asked and produce what I'm told?

The point - it's all very well have high ideals about what to do and how you want to do it, as a commercial designer. But listen to what the client wants you to do, too. And I don't mean you personally, but the people you're aiming this thread at. If they want to be successful at this, then the pragmatics of listening to the client is crucial, and supersedes showing off their technical or design skills.

I don't design websites for a living, though as I said, I've knocked up a few. But I've been involved in commissioning some, and other IT projects, and it's astonishing how often enthusiastic young IT pro's are so enthusiastic about the fact that they can do this or that with technology that they lose sight of the client's wishes. And that's a good way to lose clients. That's the perspective I mentioned - bear in mind the designer needs to produce what the client wants, not what the designer would like to do. Because if one designer/developer doesn't give the client what he wants, there's another out there that will.

Use the tips you've given by all means. They're all very good practice. But keep it firmly in line with client requirements. And if that means a cheap and cheerful job because that's what he wants, there's no point designing him a Rolls Royce version. And sometimes, that is all he wants.

[Pup]

Just reminds me of a pic we used to have pinned to the wall in the office at my last job, and it was quite freaky when I first saw it as to how true it was

[tiggerai]

yes, that's a classic one!

But still really off the topic of what I was trying to explain... but heyho!

[Mblaster]

Both good points above...

Before tables there were frames... they're horrible and non-accessible.

and no, it's not easy. I've been doing this 5 years and there is still stuff I'm finding out every day!

AND don't start mastering the server side things (ASP, PHP AJAX etc) without having a VERY GOOD GROUNDING in the basics. And I mean being able to code a page from scratch, in notepad++ or dreamweaver.

People who "do websites" but then you find that they have used a dreamweaver template really let the side down. Heck, even my mum can do that.

Code a site from scratch including CSS and I'll be impressed.

When you say "it's not easy" it depends a lot on what level of stuff you are making. I taught myself HTML when I was about 14 without any trouble to build my own websites in notepad after a brief play with MS Frontpage convinced me to uninstall it (Dreamweaver is a lot better these days though, but I still prefer Textpad). Taught myself XHTML/CSS later as well after it was more popularised.

But moving on to web application development is a big step up from html and is a completely different thing, it just uses XHTML/CSS as a front end, and between the two is the more basic dynamic pages like a site with a logon, or some population via a database.

[aidanjt]

Yeah, though you weren't dealing with browser compatibility with (D,X,*)HTML/CSS when you were 14 were you?

[Mblaster]

Yeah, though you weren't dealing with browser compatibility with (D,X,*)HTML/CSS when you were 14 were you?

Nope, cause IE had an even bigger majority back then than it does now, Firefox wasn't even released yet, and coding to web standards was not such a big thing as it is now. Although, I have since started coding for cross browser support.

[probedb]

The point - it's all very well have high ideals about what to do and how you want to do it, as a commercial designer. But listen to what the client wants you to do, too. And I don't mean you personally, but the people you're aiming this thread at. If they want to be successful at this, then the pragmatics of listening to the client is crucial, and supersedes showing off their technical or design skills.

The thing is designing a standards complaint, accessible website isn't showing off. It should be how you build a website every time, whether it's 3 pages for a mate or a full blown CMS for a big company.

I don't understand why people think these are mutually exclusive. Where I work we've taken the HTML/CSS coding off the design/web agency because they simply didn't get it. The code was ok to a point but not very maintainable etc.

I'd recommend this book for those starting out and wanting to do websites the right way.... Amazon.co.uk: Build Your Own Website The Right Way Using HTML & CSS: Ian Lloyd: Books

There are also things to remember like using semantic HTML, keeping your presentation and code separate. I.e. inline styles are a bad idea. In an ideal world you want to try and make your site so you can completely redesign it by replacing the stylesheet. Though obviously that never quite works

[manwithnoname]

Yeah, though you weren't dealing with browser compatibility with (D,X,*)HTML/CSS when you were 14 were you?

Probably a point worth making: (Un)fortunately my webpages are in the past, not sure how standard the standards are nowadays but back in my day the web pages were tested on a number of browsers - it's worth making sure that the pages are rendered, if not exactly the same, in an expected/acceptable view - god bless Netscape Navigator.

[KalC]

Sorry to bump an old (ish) thread but recently I have been thinking about and looking into the possibility of Web Design and Development to pursue as a career (maybe). Would it be worth it?...considering the vast amount of competition out there

[HSK]

^ I'm in the same position (but mainly front end, and design).

[tiggerai]

I think it would be, as long as you're willing to put the hard work in.

There isn't THAT much competition for GOOD web developers, definitley not in the City anyway.

I would also choose either Design or Development, you can't excel in both... Completely different mindsets!