Forum Moderators: phranque
It really drives me nuts when you know of people who can barely turn on a computer, who get freelance jobs to create websites for places...then ask you questions like "How do I make a link open in a new window?" ... I mean ... how did you get the job in the first place?
Yet myself, who with the help of a graphics designer can create anything, including corporate ecommerce apps that integrate with legacy corporate apps and multiple databases (not exactly a fun task though), struggles to get freelance work?
It just boggles my mind...
I realize my portfolio is lacking, since I'm mainly a programmer...and it's not the easiest skill to showcase when most of your work is proprietary and can't be shared.
But...yeah...anyhow, just venting.
Keep in mind, you get this in pretty much any type of service industry. I distinctly remember as a child my father, who was in the contruction industry, complaining about guys who did it on the side or who weren't that great taking jobs from his company.
Perhaps it's time for a top ten reasons why your "son, couzin, brother-in-law, friend, or mail room clerk" should not design your companies web site even though they'll do it really really cheap, article.
Freq---
It was the very worst looking site I had ever seen. The animated gifs had nasty white fringes and the red Times New Roman text on a royal blue background in a variety of font sizes was giving me headache.
I asked if the person who has designed it was blind? It turns out he was a large percentage blind, and they'd given him the job as a charitable gesture because of it.
Its hard to know whether to laugh or cry.
I see stuff like that all the time, people are proud of it...but they're not looking at the result objectively. When I do designs, I know they are crap...I don't even bother trying to do graphics design anymore. I lay out the site, write all the backend, and then pass it off to a graphics designer to apply some 'makeup'.
The point is, I know my limits, and I know when what I've done is no good. The problem with many amateurs is they don't know their limits, they don't know what's good or bad, they are just so proud they did it, that it's automatically good to them.
The other thing that annoys me, is people who make concious decisions to do the WRONG thing despite all the evidence to the contrary. One friend, decided to have a site done through an overseas design company...all in flash...because they wanted flash, and these guys did it cheap.
Well, it was cheap, and crap. It looked ok, but how do you do SEO on flash? Not easily. How do you add content to flash sites...again, not easily, they are a fixed size...and thus, takes up a 1/4 of my screen. And the way they are paging data in it is horrible, titles don't follow from page 1 to page 2, sometimes the section title is the bottom of a page, then the content on the next...so you lose the connectivity, the point.
NOTHING on that site that was done in flash had to be done in flash...and within a month, they've allready had to change webhosts...
...it's a mess. But they are a startup and wanted it cheap...hopefully they'll learn for next time and hire someone good (me)
And earlier today, I was helping my sister with a site she was working on the design of...it's changes to an existing site her company manages, which was initially based on a code they had outsourced (a hacked up CMS, by the look of it, they removed the DB and just set all the variables by hand in include files)...needless to say, it was garbage...absolute garbage. It might as well have been static html, because the way they were using php was pointless.
So ...yeah...I'm getting frustrated.
Actually I'm working on building a CMS I plan to use when developing sites...but it's coming along slow...only so many hours a day, and I got to work on what pay the bills the majority of them!
Serious professional replies:
I can do this and that but I'd have to check on the other - it isn't highly regarded so I don't normally do it.
Idiot hackers replies: (with misplaced confidence/bulls**t)
Sure, no problem.
Client and idiot hackers often get on well together because both are ignorant, and so idiot hackers get work.
Kaled.
Yes, Flash is sexy and an easy sell and an easy target for purist programmers or SEOs. But, on the other hand a lot of programmers are making money flogging useless CMS systems designed in primitive html that no-one needs. Depends on combining your skills with sales with your "unique" blend of experience. Some people make money from usability, some from multi-lingual sites, some from css, some from bog-standard FrontPage templates - the point is not that their programming skills are not up to yours, but that their skills in marketing themselves are better than yours.
...regretably they tend to mistake that for me trying to make a small thing difficult. When in reality, there small thing, is difficult, and I'm trying to make it easy...
Sadly, it's against the law to just whack them upside the head with a 5-iron, give them what they REALLY want and need, and grab your fee while they're still unconcious :p
There is a whole weeks worth of cake eating and tea drinking needed to build up my strength for strenuous things like looking at specs.
Kaled, completely classic, and oh so true. Client is told what they want to hear by idiot, and since they both speak the same language, client believes that they are hearing competetence when all they are getting is an echo of their own incompetence.
Smart clients learn from this experience and move on to higher levels, dumb clients never learn, and suspect that the web game is rigged against them.
"There is a whole weeks worth of cake eating and tea drinking needed to build up my strength for strenuous things like looking at specs."
AlexMiles, oh, LOL.... so I'm not the only one? That's a relief.
People just wont recognise their own limts of knowledge and skill in a matter way beyond their means of comprehension.
Gibble: you may be good at what you do but your not marketing your self correctly, have you joined local business forums in your?
See, my problem is I'm honest. If the client says can you do X (where X is not the best way to do it) I politely tell them that, and explain why and what I would do differently and why...
...regretably they tend to mistake that for me trying to make a small thing difficult. When in reality, there small thing, is difficult, and I'm trying to make it easy...
Try this: "I can do X, but I am concerned that you will not be satisfied with the results. I suggest [cheap, easy, very basic solution Y] or you may wish to consider [ideal solution Z]." It worked for me today!
No offense intended ..
I went to your web site. It's actually pretty bland.
The 'prices' and 'services' page is the same .. okay, no big deal
Your 'portfolio' shows 1 web site .. and it isn't linked .. and the domain name is very easy to misspell .. but I finally got there (I think many people wouldn't without a link)
Re: the domain shown in your profile
- the home page looks a little amateurish to me. i.e., the images aliasing in the logo is a bit ragged ..
- the 'knowledge base' is flush against the left side menu (no padding)
Secondly, the thing I have said before. If people do not know anythng about websites and you happen to have one, then they think you are therefore an expert. After all, you have a website, and know therefore how to do it.
The reason they are ok with the result is because the untrained eye sees much less of what the trained eye sees. YOU see what is wrong, but they do not even realise that it is not part of the design!
Iwrite
See, my problem is I'm honest. If the client says can you do X (where X is not the best way to do it) I politely tell them that, and explain why and what I would do differently and why...
I always say to my coders "I want this feature. I've looked at options A,B, and C. What do you think is best, or do you have a better idea?"
I've never really thought about it from your point of view, but I think I have to agree with you in general. I find it hard to find good coders, becuase I want thtem to look at the options and give me advice.
No offense taken ..
I realize the prices and services page are the same...I had a quick design made but I recently had the new design started, and had to throw something up, if you saw the site before you'd understand why, amazingly, a half done site is better than what I had before, but I have a couple projects taking alot of my time right now, and thus, my site hit the backburner.
The portfolio has one rather old site that I coded three or four years ago. The reason there is little else, is like I said, I'm mainly a programmer, and most of what I do is private/proprietary. I'd like to put some of the clients down, but since I didn't design their websites and just did backend coding for them that the public can't see, it's impossible to show. Also the site in the profile is an excellent example of why I DON'T do design and why I outsource it...because designs I do look like crap (they are worse than amateurish).
You brought up a good point about the untrained eye not seeing what we see. A friend of mine was asking for advice about a site for his company (family's actually), I knew I wasn't getting this job (owners fault, not his), it wasn't really a big deal, they were heavily cost concious being a startup and right now just wanted decent, fast, cheap and outsourced overseas. Anyhow, they wanted an all flash site, and they wanted a flash intro to the site. Their site is for sales...he was asking advice about their ideas and showing sites they liked, and what they were going for. Well, the two main things I pointed out, were that all the example sites I was being shown didn't need flash to do...it was wasteful, and cutting down potential market since not everyone has flash, and if they don't have a highspeed connection or are using a mobile device (very likely for the target audience). But no matter the reasons, the owners wanted flash...it was a REQUIREMENT...whatever. Then I explained why a flash intro is rather pointless...you have to put a skip button on it so people don't get bored...and conversely, if you put a skip button on it, you're effectively saying to the client, "This is a waste of your time!" So why waste money on something that will rarely be seen?
Qutie frankly, while I'm not a fan of intros, that didn't bother me as much as the entire site being in flash...I explained SEO to him and how it's much tougher to optimize a flash site...etc, etc...
I had him convinced...but the owners were adamant...FLASH FLASH FLASH...
...and these are the scenarios I'm talking about. This wasn't a lost sale, I knew I wasn't getting it from the beginning because of the cost restraints...but, yeah...I've seen what they got...and heh...CRAP! But it was cheap...
Read the customer; are they open and ready to hear all about SEO, W3.org, validation, accesiblity, Box models ...
If they are, give them that.
See what they know and work with them. Don't badmouth Splash pages or their son who usues Front Page to make pages.
Also, not all potential business clients are owned by idiots.
How much do you know about plumbing, HVAC, car engines......
Well, in the example I gave, I was never getting that contract to begin with...they wanted CHEAP, and got it, I would have done flash for them, I was just explaining why I wouldn't recommend it, offering advice, the owners were allready decided, my friend was just trying to get advice and sway them to make a better decision...he mostly agreed with me.
I also don't bad mouth, I will offer constructive criticism...and explain why there's a better way of doing something, not that what's there is wrong, just that it could be better.
"How much do you know about plumbing, HVAC, car engines...... "
Heh, actually, I'm renovating my house and redoing all the electrical, plumbing, and pretty much the rest of the house myself. And car restoration is a hobby of mine, I'm currently building an engine for my '63 Meteor, planning to redo the one in my Mustang soon, and if I can get my garage insulated and heated before winter hits, I'll hopefully have the body work done and ready for paint by spring.
Have you looked at your site using IE?
You have a bit of a problem and it certainly won't help attract potential clients!
The site displays fine in FF but not IE.
None of the images display and none of your navigation works!?!
Take a look...
I have friends who are on the recieving end. They strictly program, and stay away from design like the plague. They have a similar attitude as you have conveyed; know what they want, how they want to do it, and why it is best. Some of them aren't so great at communicating with clients.
I on the other hand am much better dealing with clients, know when to sell them on standards etc, and when I should just submit to their requests, pump out a cheap site and not let it anywhere near my portfolio.
I think you need to spend a little more time analyzing who it is your market REALLY is. I don't think you should be out trying to convince anyone of anything really. Focus on those that already know they need what you can offer. If you have the skills, then established web development companies will want to hire you as a freelancer. They already have the proper budget/clients, and in my experience are always looking for someone they can have work on random jobs they pick up.
Shift your focus and put yourself in an entirely different market than those that you've described. You'll have way more success and less frustration if you try to sell yourself to someone like myself... rather than the end client.
Actually there are problems in FF as well, which just points out the fact that none of us are without faults and eligible to rant about the perceived incompetence of others.
If I were you, I'd add the links to the sites you've programmed to your portfolio. As long as you explain what you did for each site, it would be a totally legitimate way of showcasing your skills.
In other words, don't claim that you 'designed the site', rather say that you 'designed and implemented the php-based content management system'. If clients know what that means, then they're probably going to be good ones to work with. If they don't, then at least they'll still be able to see what sort of quality sites you've worked on in the past.
I feel like a dunce now...ugh...
