Paul Brooks | 11 Jun 2007
For an industry that is so important to the world, is it not a little surprising that there is no regulation for web design? Anyone is free to call themself a web designer and go about their business building websites for clients, even without any real experience, training or formal education.
The vast number of badly designed websites on the Internet is evidence of the problems this causes. With no regulation or guidelines for quality in web design, businesses have little choice but to follow their gut instincts when selecting a designer.
Surely there should be some form of ‘watchdog’ or neutral party to monitor the quality of service delivered by web designers and provide impartial advice for customers? This would not only increase protection for businesses and consumers, but would also help to improve quality across the Internet.
The problem with the web design industry is that it is so very easy to create a web page and have it displayed on the World Wide Web. A ‘designer’ only needs a couple of basic software packages and limited skills and they can start to offer their services.
This is compounded by the fact that most clients will have very little understanding themselves. Many businesses don’t fully grasp the benefit of having a website and have even less appreciation of good design. So when they see a badly designed website, they may not recognise it as such. In this way, the mistakes made by poor or inexperienced web designers are overlooked or ignored.
Other problems include poor customer service, poor communication, project delays and a lack of long-term maintenance. Without any impartial advice, clients are left to simply hope that none of these things happen.
It is possible that these issues could be solved by the introduction of a regulatory body for the web design industry, similar to what you would find in the building trade or in banking. However, it would be very difficult to regulate an industry that spreads all the way from an international marketing agency down to a 15-year old student working from his bedroom.
A more suitable solution could be an impartial organisation charged with maintaining a directory of web designers. Each web designer might be scored in a number of different areas (such as visual design, usability, accessibility, search engine optimisation, etc) and these scores could be affected by positive or negative feedback from clients.
Add to this other ratings for time in business, formal education and qualifications and you would have a pretty good picture of how good each web designer was. Clients could search for web designers in their area with experience in their industry and in the type of work they need carried out.
Without some form of regulation, the web design industry will continue to be tarnished by individuals and agencies that damage customer confidence in it. There are a vast number of exceptionally talented designers with good experience and a real understanding of the impact a website will have on a business. It’s a shame there are so many without.
At Eden Light, we pride ourselves in offering high quality web design, combined with project management, customer service and marketing experience that would rival any others in the industry. Please get in touch to learn how we could help to make your website a success.
"Regulations only works if they are governed. From experience I would say businesses are not stupid and can research and single out skilled and experienced website design and development services.
Paul, you could apply what you say in your article to any form of serivce. If a business cannot determine what is and is not a viable service then they should not be in business.
The web industry has organisations to promote standards and best practice. With that said there are still companies out there, and they know who they are, who reasure companies that their business website meets the required standards.
How ever you look at it there are pros and cons to governing web develpment and design and therefore it is the responsibility of customers to educate themselves enough to select the viable services. When in doubt, Google it.
" | mark | 2 October 2008
"Good article with very valid points, Paul. Unfortunately there is no way of preventing abuse of the industry. Trades such as the building trade have regulations for reasons of health and safety. These are of course not applicable in web design and therefore the government will not take an interest. A directory would be a good idea - there are several already in fact - however it would be of little use unless it's public exposure was so great that clients naturally referred to it prior to choosing a designer, which is unlikely.
There really is no solution. It's just part and parcel with the industry." | Steve Tucker | 7 September 2007
PBS UK Ltd are a specialist business outsourcing provider based in the East Midlands offering services such as UK & International Payroll, HR and BACS Payments.
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