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Fox Expert: Anyone Can Be a Web Designer (video)
Back in 1997, I was approached by a recruiting firm in NYC to create a "test" for HTML. They were placing tons of HTML coders but many times the clients would call the recruiter because the coder was using a WYSIWYG tool when the coder said they were a hand-coding expert.
Yesterday on the Fox show, "The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet", expert Lesley Spencer Pyle explained how people at home could make money using the Internet. One of the ways Pyle noted was that you could become a Web designer and create brochure sites for businesses for at least $500 a piece. Pyle noted, "you would think you need some great skills to do that (web design), but there are tools to do it for you".
She named SnapPages as her tool of choice. We covered SnapPages (including a video interview with the founder) back in September. SnapPages seems like a well developed tool that might be good for creating your own website. The real issue here is that design is just one portion of creating an effective online presence. I hear stories from small businesses all the time who have left the online space because they felt that it wasn’t worth the investment. It’s these type of "fly by night" designers (or developers, marketers, etc.) that will slowly erode the industry as a whole and make it harder for talented professionals to get work.
Here’s the clip of Pyle explaining how to become a Web designer in 2 minutes or less:
(no comments about the video quality!)
So what you are saying is that since I can throw a ball through a hoop I can take my almost 370 lb 6′5″ self to the sports store, dress in the right gear, and call myself a pro basketball player? Cool! I’ll say hi to Shaq for you all!
Honestly, where do they get these people?
Here’s my 1.5 cents… Working as a sales manager for a web development firm, I have encountered many a person with a small budget and/or in the beginning stages of deciding what they needed for a website. When I provided a quote for services they simply could not afford/justify the expense at this time. No amount of explaining, offering benefits, etc… help. And if I did perhaps succeed in persuading them to pay us to develop/design/optimize their site they were constantly modifying, refining and basically becoming more of a problem and more of a cost to me than a benefit. Some/many of them had an idea and needed time to refine it, maturity of business and larger budgets. Many of them even had graphics to use. This type of concept is a perfect fill the gap offering for them. It gives them the time they need while still offering exposure.
As to the concept of someone building these sites from home – what makes anyone think there aren’t able graphic designer women who do work from home and looking for additional work? Or someone who has a graphic designer to help her and she just builds the sites and charges a premium. The site is then able to be updated by her or someone else for a premium. Personally not a bad idea….
Again, just my 1.5 cents – but it sounds like most of you have a beef with the whole concept… interesting ….
For clarity, I do not have a beef with the concept. I think this is an incredible time where technology allows us to do things like work long distances or in our spare time.
This clip, however, was clearly a “Anybody can do this – why not buy my book and find out ways you can get rich.” type of show. A person who hasn’t thought of this already and has to use jigsaw helpers to create brochure websites that can get $500 for them is a bit of a stretch. There are only one-in-a-bazillion who have never heard of such a thing that’s worth $500 for a site. (Not scientifically verified statistic).
I guess my beef is with the shows that hurt the image of professionals by doing the “and you can do it too” promos which make it seem like the skills that have been honed are not that special. Websites are the worst because anyone CAN make a site, but they look like crap and they don’t even realize it.
If I tried to paint a landscape I’d pick up the brush and stare at the canvas and think “Dang, those guys have skills – I don’t even know where to start.” but with WYSIWYG tools and jigsaw puzzle site makers a person may not come to that realization.
There’s just more to design than making index.html with blue letters on a red background that say “Hello World”.
I somewhat disagree… the professionals in the industry usually don’t want the lowballer clients. They’re the ones that nickel and dime you.
Great designers will still stand out, and hell… even traditionally average designers will appear leaps and bounds above the nickel and dime designers.
Nevertheless, I watched the clip with my jaw dropped and one eyebrow raised…
She’s right. Anyone can be a (crappy) web designer. And since the majority of people have no taste, and / or can’t apply that taste to the code and graphics, they will either be able to offer a cutout template from the free hosts kind of site that can’t fit clients logo brand, or they will make completely original crap, complete with freebie animated Horizonal Rules, hit counters, and poorly tiled cloud backgrounds.
If it takes no skill to be a web designer, why don’t all those business owners have their ten-year-old kid do it then? The big question is why didn’t she mention google pages. It’s better than snap pages for sure.
Sweet. I’m going to love swimming in an even bigger pool of turds.
The issue is that even if it was an awesome site – just having a site rarely results in anything. But I agree with you – anyone can be a crappy web designer.
Sad but true. A few years ago public relations was the best way for stay at home moms to make some easy money.
Well this work at home dad has been trying that scam for a few years now and let me tell you, it’s hard work making a living.
no no david – seo was the best job a few years ago!
Hilarious because I was just talking to my GF this morning about “everybody’s a web designer” BS… lol.
Yes you can teach anybody basic html code but that doesn’t make you a designer or a developer – makes you a crappy handyman. Those sites will never pay off, never rank, and prove very quickly that the people trying to make a quick buck will fail at that too online because they’re too friggin lazy to put any serious time/effort into anything.
It was easy to make a quick buck on the net back in like 95-2000, but there’s so much crap out there now they’ll never succeed.
And yes there are far better tools out there to create a scrappy page than snap pages lol…
Word. Anything worthwhile in life requires effort/investment/time/etc.
that’s why those late night infomercials piss me off so much- they make people believe there is an easy way to make money – when there isn’t.
well you could hire a designer and then an SEO expert separately. But coming from the UI coding side, there are so many sites that encourage users to leave / not buy that it’s not even funny. And they don’t even realize it.
I had a friend of a friend ask me to do a static but unique (not templated) site for a small dog groomer. I said the lowest I’d go was about $2k and I thought she was going to flip a lid. Two THOUSAND dollars? Of course what happened was she spent $500 with one guy, not happy, then another $1000 with another who just disappeared, etc.
Now I hire (and fire) designers. I won’t let a designer do any coding – ie I keep them as completely separate jobs. I hire them by their portfolio. Much of design itself is subjective but there are standardizations for rules of UE that must be adhered to, and that you can’t teach yourself by just using a tool or reading 1 book.
she’s an expert? c’mon now… she just wants applause from the audience