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Why You Suck As a Web Designer
Let’s be honest, if you still like galloping unicorn animated gifs, then you suck as a web designer! Your taste is stuck on the dark side of web design in the 90s, and you really should start reading current web design blogs as soon as you can. If you own a business and want to cut corners on your website by doing it yourself, I am going to walk you through 5 sure-fire ways to tell if you actually do suck as a web designer and need to hire a professional to meet your web needs.
1. You believe frames are useful
I shouldn’t have to mention this, but mainstream users aren’t used to seeing frames, they are used to seeing the web in an ever evolving design standard; frames are not a part of that standard. Don’t use frames because you just learned them in chapter 12 of “How HTML Works”. Watch out for what the pros are doing and lean in that direction, or better yet, hire the pro.
2. You think animated gifs and scrolling text are cool
I worked as an educational technology coordinator in the mid to late 90’s, and I remember those teachers who had to have every galloping animal, spinning mailbox, dancing baby, and scrolling marquee on one page. This wasn’t only the trend in education, however, and it’s not the trend now. If you like cool, try researching a thing called jQuery. It’s way more professional, and it’s still in style.
3. Your font colors and styles vary by sentence
So, you like font, huh? Well, please stick with one that matches your theme or brand! One sign of an unprofessional website is unnecessary use of multiple font sizes and colors in different paragraphs or sentences. It’s okay to bold a phrase or use headers when needed, but please be sparing and use caution. You don’t need a cartoonish website, and unless your site is a blog called “font unleashed”, then find a standard and stick with it.
4. You love those crazy background tiles
I can see it now. You are sitting in your office and you tell your people, “I really like that purple background with stars in it”! If your employees graduated college anytime in the near past, they should drop an acme anvil on your head to wake you up. Never use a background that is going to contrast your brand, hide your font or take away from your message. Backgrounds should be like NBA referees; you should never know they are there.
5. You make gratuitous use of “the latest and greatest”
I have a client who loves all the latest bits of new technology, and it is the hardest thing in the world to convince this client to scale back. If you incorporate all the latest and greatest, you will attract nerds galore, but your message will get lost in the technology. You don’t need tons of flash, trailing mouse pointers or page peels, you need to sparingly use whatever will promote what you are trying to say. Do not detract from your purpose just because you want something cool, do that on your personal site at home.
Although this list of 5 points isn’t exhaustive, it should be a good measuring stick to see if you suck at web design. If you do, you have two options:
- Pour yourself into what is good design
- Hire a professional web shop to create a design and a plan
Comments and stories are always welcome!
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Ray
