Can You Build a Web Page?

Can You Build a Web Page?

Written by craig coffman

It seems like everyone and their brother is a web designer / developer these days. While I am glad that more people are interested in the web and the technologies which drive it, this influx sort of pisses me off. Not only because it makes it harder to get a fair rate, but because it makes it harder to have a company trust I know what I am doing.

Regularly I am told that I should undergo a trial project or do the first project at a reduced rate because they got burned by the last freelancer. Let me put up front, I do not accept these jobs. And you should not either. Should someone be interested in my work and look through the sites contained within my portfolio, they know what they are getting into. Often these trial projects turn into nightmares and rarely lead to more work. This means I have just spent an inordinate amount of time on a project yielding a low return of pay. So why go through this?

Again, you should not go through it. But I do try to look at things from the clients point of view. There are numerous hacks and cheats out there taking advantage of people needing an online presence. Once they pull out with their cash, the unknowing business is left with a poorly coded site and a tangle of code to weed through to attempt updates. When I find myself faced with a company in this predicament, I try to explain what I think their previous coder did wrong ,but I place more emphasis on what I would do.

This does two things. Firstly, it lets them know that they really did get sold a bill of goods. They are not crazy and no, their pain does not need to be a reality of life on line. Secondly, and more importantly, it puts me out there as someone who not only can see what was handled poorly, but what I can do to make it better. Typically this puts the potential client on more solid ground as I have not only discovered and outlined what is wrong with their site, but a map to fixing it.

While this does not always work, it does have a high success rate. Let’s be serious for a moment: there are more people out there not really knowing what they are doing building sites than people who do. This is because you can cut-and-paste anything in. Or, even more egregious in my eyes, have a program write your code for you. While these applications do a good job, and the tutorials work, said developer does not know what the code is doing. They know what the outcome is, but not how they got there.

This phenomenon ruins the climate for legitimate developers / designers. We are frequently left cleaning up someone else’s mess (when possible) or completely redoing the work. That said, I think there are a few simple self-checks you ought to consider before moving along down the path of developing for the web.

• Do you only use Dreamweaver in Visual mode?
• Do you let Dreamweaver add JavaScript functionality to your site?
• Do you frequently grab code from tutorial sites without modification?
• Do you get layouts from View Source in your browser?
• Do you implement new technologies because they are new?
• Do you have a library of reference books?

If you answered yes, except to the last question, then please take the time to actually learn what you are doing. The last question would be a great starting point. If you answered yes to all questions AND no to the last, please call up all your clients and tell them you are a sham and refund every dime they have given you. Not only will they feel better, the rest of us who spend time cleaning up after you will rejoice a tiny bit.

If you are a potential client, you might want to copy down the above list of questions as well. This is a good starting point to preventing your company from tossing away lots of money and wasting time. Not to mention a lessening of headaches.

Just to be clear, I am not slagging any of the above things completely. Dreamweaver is a fantastic product. Countless tutorial sites are fertile ground to grow ideas and expand your arsenal of techniques. Reference books are good, but they can only go so far. I am just saying that if you do not know what you are putting in the site, you are doing a huge disservice to your clients. They might not know it now, but they will discover it down the road when things need to be updated or stop functioning.

Take the time to learn the code and truly understand what is happening. It will further your knowledge and make you better in this industry. While Dreamweaver has a code mode, try a text editor. I use and fully endorse skEdit. If you have no interest in learning to code, politely get out. If we can all get better, or at least weed out the bad seeds, then we all do better. More jobs come along. More money gets spent. Projects are easier to sell because there is not a sour taste lingering. Good times for all.