March 01, 2004 | View Comments (33) | Category: Our Thoughts
Summary: The job description of a web designer in the future.
Ever read through those job ads on Monster or HotJobs and scoff at the idea that anyone could have all the skills included for the position? Did you begin to laugh even harder when you saw the starting salary of the position? Well, it happens all the time. A lot of people say that these job descriptions are meant to weed out certain people, but I really do think HR departments believe that people have all of these skills. Good thing I design websites because I do not have to worry about having all of those skills...ermmmm, wait. Let's go over a checklist of the skills that are required to be a successful web designer in the near future.
If you ever feel guilty about charging a client a certain amount of money, odds are you are undercharging them. Look at all the stuff we have to worry about!
The role of the web designer/developer has evolved greatly over the years. In some ways we are programmers who must possess great knowledge of a language and can quickly debug errors. Inherently you have to be aware of usability guidelines and IA principles. Don't think your clients care how they rank in search engines? Right. And of course the little graphical touch is always nice.
Do not ever go through life thinking that you are just a web designer/developer. Look at the items on the list. I am sure I missed a couple. But look at them and realize you are a highly skilled professional and if you were hiring a web designer you would expect them to have the same skills. Maybe those Monster ads are not so far off after all.
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Okay, so look at the above job description as just being for web designers. And now you added Illustrator and Flash to the list although they are not required, it is one of those things that people like to list as "preferred".
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
I can handle all the ones you listed there as they are at least all "front-side" technologies. The ones that get me are when the list everything you have in the post, then they say you also have to know SQL, ASP.NET, PHP, TCP/IP, and 15 other obscure programming languages.
With very few exceptions, I don't know of any programmers that have even 1oz. of artistic talent. I consider myself a lot more designer than developer, and have absolutely no interest in programming. But all these HR people want you to be both, and that just doesn't happen most of the time in my experience. You'll either end up with a lousy programmer, or a lousy designer. There are some people out there that are good at both, but to me they are generally two completely different people.
HR departments could at least separate front-end and back-end stuff when they hire people.
Derek Rose (http://www.twotallsocks.com/)
Before someone is offended I know that sounded kind of harsh towards programmers... I didn't mean it that way. I think programmers can be creative, just in a different way than a designer. And rarely have I met someone that is good at thinking both creatively in a design way, as well as logically in a programming way. But that is not to say they don't exist. :)
Derek Rose (http://www.twotallsocks.com/)
::hand raised:: developer, poet and vocalist, thanks. Double majored in philosophy and voice performance. And I even know 'obscure' languages like SQL and PHP, though not ASP.NET (which isn't really a language, it's a framework for use of a few different languages) or TCP/IP (which is a communications protocol, not a language).
HR Departments should only seperate front and back end if they have a very large number of people. Now, for a pure graphic designer, sure, no languages are needed, including HTML. But a web designer in a corporation is going to need some back end stuff, even if only to understand the code the more advanced developer wrote. And I've never once seen a web design firm that'll hire someone without some kind of backend capabilities, at minimum enough to work with the developers and so on.
It's a pretty tight job market in the US, after all, and why on earth would they hire two people to do the job of one, when they can easily find one who can do both?
:-)
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
While it may be rare that someone be a good programmer and desginer I do not think that it is always the case that one is incapable of the other.
It took me 4 years of formal education in Computer Science and you can pad that time frame with a few years each way of self teaching to get where I am today.
I do not believe I am incapable of creating good artwork, I just dont have the same amount of time invested in it. This is a big reason why I do not have a personal website up yet, I have much higher design standards for myself than I am capable of creating. It is why I don't do freelance work, I could do all of the programming the XHTML the CSS no problem, and enjoy doing it, but then I have to make it look pretty too?!(and lets face it, to the average client, that is the important part)
And then I see all these visually fantastic CSS sites and sites like the CSS Vault just make me restart whatever pitiful design I was working on because its not nearly as good as the sites Scrivs posted today! (Damn you Scrivs! :-p )
Jason
Hey don't be mad at me, you don't see any of my sites in there ;P At least you don't have to constantly look at them.
What about the great Flash Designers? I haven't delved too deeply into ActionScript, but I am assuming on larger sites the quality of the programming job increases with these sites.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
Man yer good. Your post is a nice bit of perspective!
I find one of the things that gets me hot under the collar, and it's something that has been talked about of late over on Asterisk (http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/), is not so much realizing ourselves of all of our abilities, but showing potential clients about the quality of work that we can provide.
Mike P. (http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com.com/sandbox/weblog/)
That has certainly been my issue when job hunting for the past several years.
In high school, I took a torturous course in C## that made me think that I couldn't do programming. In retrospect, I simply had the most horrible teacher that did not know how to communicate with high school kids. But it did teach me some valuable programming logic. In college, I had to delve deep into Lingo, a programming language for Macromedia Director. When I became something of a star student, it made me realize... maybe I could do this programming stuff. I've learned a very small smattering of programming languages (ASP, PHP, JavaScript) since then, but not enough to build CMSes or manage databases, something I really want to do.
Which, frankly, is why I'm going to start earning my Bachelors in Web Development. Further down the line, I hope to get my Bachelors in Graphic Design to learn more of the theory and philosophy of design. Versus my current method of "Does this look pretty?... yes." With a dual role as designer and developer, my rare skillset would be in high demand, if those insane Monster.com and HotJob.com ads are to be believed. :)
Alanna (http://www.expio.net)
I agree designers need to be able to at least understand some basic back-end stuff like PHP, and I do. I mean I can setup scripts and databases and get them all working, but I would never call myself a programmer, and really have no interest in it.
And I'm just basing my comments on programmers that I have met personally, not every programmer in the world. And my statements definitely hold true for the programmers I have met personally.
Derek Rose (http://www.twotallsocks.com/)
It is definitely more easier to get a job as a backend dominated person because "anyone can learn HTML and build a webpage" in contrast to a frontend person who can't just say, "Yeah I do think I can learn how to build a n-tier system with C# in a couple of days."
Alanna: C##? I have to try that language one day. You should have a rare skillset as one of the few who has ever been taught that language.
Scrivs (http://9rules.com/whitespace/)
Scrivs -
she's being musical. :-)
C## = D
D is C, incremented by 1... so she's saying she learned C++
and "anyone can learn HTML and build a webpage" may not be accurate, but anyone who can pick up even a simple programming language will find HTML trivial. Whether they can manage the aesthetic side nicely or not is uncertain, but in many cases, it's really secondary (remember that the majority of web things in a company are purely internal web-based applications which must be functional, not decorative)
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
Musical huh? Okay, okay, I will accept that then.
When I said "anyone can learn HTML and build a webpage" I was speaking in the context of what many HR people believe. Sort of like how my friends think I am a computer whiz and fix all their issues because "I work with computers".
Scrivs (http://9rules.com/whitespace/)
Oh, hell. HR people don't believe that. HR people don't have the faintest clue what that is, and like all computer things, it is a mystical thing to be suspicious of, perhaps even feared. That's why there are so many requirements on those job postings... they all involve computers, so someone who knows computers must know them all, right?
heh
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
> C## = D = C++
I can't believe I've never heard that one before. See? Programmers are creative, they're just creative in different ways...very strange ways ;)
Anyway, I wrote a short rant last week that touches on some of this:
The Nephew Effect
Paul G (http://www.relativelyabsolute.com)
Darn. I blocked out so much of that painful high school memory that I completely forgot what the language was correctly called. Or it was just my pre-coffee ramble. Or a typo. Or I don't care.
Certainly a back-end developer earns a higher salary than a front-end person. Frankly, I would agree that it is easier to learn HTML versus some other language. But its also easier to draw floorplans than it is to build a house. But just because you can draw a square box and declare it a room, it doesn't make you an architect. There are thousands of issues you need to be aware of as a trained architect when creating real world and usuable design. The same level of knowledge should be expected of a web designer, regardless of programming knowledge or lack thereof.
Alanna (http://www.expio.net)
Actually, since we're trying to express equivalency and not value assignment, I suppose that line should read:
C## == D == C++
;)
Paul G (http://www.relativelyabsolute.com)
Another thought on this:
I used to design like crazy. I would keep a notebook with me at all times, to spontaenously design templates for a website. Looking back, most of these sucked, but some were actually really good.
Now with my development of my own website taking over, I rarely have time to design. I'm more interested in typography (This is really beautiful) but I still occasionally design other stuff as well.
At one point, I was very close to giving up designing altogether. I didn't see myself as being remotely good at it, and I loved programming. I appear to have found the right balance, though.
David House
Or would it be:
C## == D == (C += 1) == C++?
Unfortunately the same level of knowledge will never be expected of a web desinger of course unless they are applying to a job with a design firm. Web designing is still seen as just an "artistic or graphic design" type job by everyone. Looking at HTML you can see it is not that hard. Many clients you come across believe this and that is why they expect to pay a low fee. However, once they get burned they understand that value of a quality designer. Companies however, don't get burned as often by designers so their lessons have yet to be learnt I think.
Scrivs (http://9rules.com/whitespace/)
>Maybe those Monster ads are not so far off after all.
I agree those ads are not too far off, but that still doesn't fix the dreadful state of affairs regarding acceptable salaries.
That $13-$15/hr salary that we have all grown to love is complete and utter bulls**t - we all know it.
Unfortunately the complete lack of understanding regarding what actually constitutes competency in these prerequisites is commonplace in those doing the hiring. Coupled with the massive influx of copy & paste designers makes this a most unforgiving industry at the moment.
andrew
well, if you want to be purely accurate, it'd be === (Identical and of the same type)
:-)
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
I am finishing up my degree in Computer Science and as a programmer, I'd have to say that about 90% of programmers I know don't like web programming and don't even consider PHP a programming language. I do believe that there will always be some who can juggle both programming and design, but for the most part the two should be separated. I have been trained in programming from an acedemic standpoint, but I really love design way more than programming. I don't believe that I'm all that good at design yet, but I'm trying my hand at it and hope to be one of those hybrid anomaly people that can handle both sides of the equation.
Kurt (http://www.didenhover.org/rainier/)
I have an engineering degree, and I know all of that stuff and then some. I've trained myself as best I can in Graphic design, and strive to make the best of it. I still don't get answers when applying for those jobs.
Sometimes it's all about your nationality.
sergio (http://overcaffeinated.net)
I have seen maybe 5 “good” postings for Web design/development jobs online. Those postings emphasized the ability to learn something new as opposed to some skillset that would take the average person years to acquire. I prefer that approach because honestly, even if you know the 4 or 5 languages that a company uses, you still have to get used to their way of doing things. This happens less in design than in development jobs, but I’m sure it happens in some form in design jobs too. Example: I use ASP at my current job. I also used ASP at my last job, but the coding styles are almost 100% different even though the language syntax is the same. To a “true” programmer, picking up a new language can be done in a matter of days or weeks but altering one’s style and being flexible enough to do so may be a much bigger change. Finding somebody with the mental agility required to stay competitive in IT should be a higher priority to corporate HR and IT departments than what languages the person knows and will have to forget in 4 years when the company decides to upgrade systems.
Off-topic: why the font change Scrivs? Whitespace is one of the few sites that I feel pulls off Arial very well.
Vinnie Garcia (http://blog.vinniegarcia.com/)
I don't think much of your list sorry -- granted *we* see these as necessary skills, and so might a few discerning employers, but the reality is that most will be stuck in the "needs to look good, needs to come in under budget, needs to work well, needs to integrate with some crap piece of software we bought in the 80's -- and we don't really care how!!" category.
Any web developer who's ignoring server-side scripting and databases is also ignoring more than half of their income stream.
The fact that I can wear two (or three) hats in the design process gives me total control, and more income streams (rather than outsourcing).
Justin French (http://indent.com.au)
Let's go over a checklist of the skills that are required to be a successful web designer in the near future.
I admit that many employers will miss these requirements now and that is why I said in the future. Would you argue in the future that employers will not be looking for these skills?
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
"Any web developer who's ignoring server-side scripting and databases is also ignoring more than half of their income stream."
You left out server management and security. :-)
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
Some employers will look for those skills for sure -- in fact, many probably do it now, but the reality (especially in freelance, but also in contract and full time work) is that budget and visuals are tangible items that can be seen and assessed on the surface, so they'll allways have a higher priority to a non-technical or semi-technical decision maker.
It will be a long time before standards, WAG, etc etc are up the top o such a list for such an employer.
It will take some really big, high profile lawsuits with "joe average" companies before WAG is taken seriously.
It will take *thousands* of real-world small and medium size, high profile websites converting to XHTML/CSS before it's taken seriously by the majority of employers.
And even if you can convince them they need to care about usability, information architecture, etc (because most won't know it themselves), it will take an extensive portfolio of redesign work to prove to a potential employer that your idea of "usable" is better than someone elses, or for them to appreciate your skills in information architecture --because telling them you're good won't cut it. They have to be redesigns to give a point of reference as to what "bad" is.
Justin French (http://indent.com.au)
i've got all of the above skills and more.
I've been using Adobe since PS2.0, I've got Quark and Macromedia apps too.
I code in Perl, Java and hack pretty much anything else. I've built mailers, publishers and CMS.
SQL is no sweat, DB admin I get.
Linux, Solaris, Windows systems I can admin, my security knowledge means no bad guys let in.
But I can't find a salary that's worthy.
pid
I dont' know half this stuff yet i'm making a great salary at a place that tells me I do.
farid (http://www.lancheros.com)
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#1
Rarely is someone a 'pure' designer/developer balance -- most people lean to one side. Being more of a developer than a designer means you need skills in things like serverside languages, scripting languages etc. Being more of a designer requires skills in things like Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash etc.
David House