Amateur vs. Professional Web Design

Hiring a friend, relative or amateur may seem to be a cost-effective solution for your website project, but there are inherent drawbacks that you should consider before you proceed. Ask yourself the following questions:

How easy will it be to tell a friend or a relative that the design they've spent so many hours creating is not quite what you need or desire?
What happens if you hurt their feelings when you critique their design?
How do you replace your best friend's son or daughter, who has finished school and is now working at a full-time career?
How do you determine how much the amateur knows about web design?
How do you determine how much the amateur knows about programming for the web?
How can you find out how much the amateur really knows about preparing content that is search engine and user friendly?
Will the amateur know how to code the design for many types of browsers so that all visitors to my website receive the same information?
Would I hire an intern to remove my gallstone, or would I hire a seasoned, professional doctor?

For a business or nonprofit organization, it is extremely important that your website have a good first impression on your visitors. If your website looks like it was created by an amateur, the impression the visitor may retain is that your firm or organization should not be taken seriously.

For a bookcase, you know what it's going to look like from a picture. A seasoned professional designer is able to take your ideas and translate them into an effective design for your website while an amateur probably won't have the ability to make this transformation happen.

The easy-to-spot pitfalls of amateur design are:

Lots of animated graphic images - For example, a bouncing ball.
All of the textual content is centered on the web page.
The textual content is typed in ALL capital letters.
Use of numerous animated advertising banners.
The website is not easy to navigate.
Information about product or services is hard to find.
A mailto link is used to submit a form.
The entire website is built using Flash animation.
The website takes more than 10 seconds to load on a 56K dialup modem.
The website causes the visitor's browser to crash.

A few of the steps that a professional web designer performs are:

Testing all of the web pages with an HTML validator.
Testing any cascading style sheets with a CSS validator.
Reviewing the website with other browsers, operating systems, and resolutions to ensure that the website is compatible on multiple browsers.
Making sure that the website is user friendly, that all links work, and that all images are properly optimized for quick load times.
Ensuring that forms are intuitive and user friendly.
Ensuring that forms are correctly encrypted.
Uses a liquid design so that visitors may resize the web page's content to a size that is readable for the visitor.

Reasons to Choose a Professional:

There are many reasons why you should choose a professional to create a custom-made bookcase or website:

Has the knowledge and skills from daily performance of the same task.
Has necessary tools to build the bookcase or website.
Will design the bookcase or website to allow for expansion at a future time.
Will work with the client to ensure the drawing and the mockup will suit their exact needs.
Has the experience to know what the work actually entails (time and materials).
Knows what impact a seemingly simple change will have on the project.
Has contacts in the field readily available to answer technical questions.
Keeps up with changes and standards to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and industry best practices.
With a professional, you are paying for their expertise so that you do not have to become an expert in a field where you have little experience.

MsDetta, Inc. provides its clientele with many professional web design services. For more information on these services, please use the Contact form or call 219.629.2909.