After working with web design companies, agencies and firms, I have found the following 7 steps will lead you to a much happier and fruitful relationship with your next web designer:
Never shop on price.
You almost never get what you expect if you aren't willing to pay properly for it. Pay careful attention to the portfolio of the website designer. Avoid web design companies that still use flash introductions on their own website.
Give a small project first. If you plan to spend a lot of money with the company, try giving them a small project first. If their service and quality of product is what you expect, they will deliver on their promises and you can move onto bigger things with that company. If they don't deliver, then you haven't wasted huge sums of money.
ALWAYS define exactly what you need before the project begins. Like it or not, a project plan with specifications is going to save a lot of trouble later on, both for you and the design company. A good project manager should be able to convey your requirements to the team properly, but good project managers are uncommon.
Due diligence. If you are getting them to do a $250 online greeting card, getting 10 references, having 4 prior meetings and asking for a 100 page specification is likely going to cause you to be tossed aside in favour of a client that is worth the trouble. On the other hand, if you are having them build the next major shopping portal for you group of 185 country-wide chain of stores and plan to have it intergrate with the services of several large companies, be absolutely sure the web design company knows what they are doing and has experience doing it. You don't want a company that is learning the ropes by using you as a guinea pig.
I hope that armed with this information you will be able to make an informed choice on which web design company, agency or firm you will use on your next project.
A. Web Design that is Screen Resolution Friendly
Surfing the web always brings up a swath of different problems all based on the different settings implemented by the web designers in their signature web designs. Among these problems is a major one that has to do with the screen resolution settings of all the different visitors who may visit any given web design. When it comes to screen resolution, it doesn’t matter how perfect and beautiful the web design may be, it is very frustrating when a viewer either cannot see the images or text properly, or the viewers have to scroll to the side to see the rest of what the site has to offer. It is truly annoying when the width of the site doesn’t fit within the width of a visitor’s monitor’s screen size.
The reason for this is that many older monitors – frequently VGA monitors – have a maximum of 640x480 pixels that they will support. There area also many visitors to your website who have older video cards. This means that no matter how good their monitor and your website, they simply will not be able to handle higher resolutions. You will need to keep this in mind when you are creating a web design for a large target audience. Actually, there are quite a few reasons to explain this web design pattern. For one, there are likely quite a number of web designers who don’t even realize the issue that they are creating. Similarly, there are those web designers who don’t care that some people will not be able to enjoy their websites. Also, we must consider that some web masters have recognized that their target audience are typically equipped with high screen resolution capabilities, and therefore are simply catering to their desired market.
It is indeed hard to believe that there are some web designers out there who can call themselves professionals and not understand the way that the different technologies used by their viewers will be impacted by the web designs that they create. Of course, web designers can’t always be blamed, since they often have the latest technologies to make their work more pleasant and professional. When it comes to those web designers who know that not everyone will be able to see their website properly, but they just don’t care are the most likely to lose the highest number of visitors. Any graphic larger than 600 by 620 pixels will definitely create a horizontal scroll bar for several website visitors. This is frustrating to visitors who have to scroll in order to read each line of text. If the webmaster simply doesn’t care, they’re turning away an awfully large number of people who could be potential clients, part of a potential network, or even contributors.
When the webmaster has recognized that the primary audience of the site has higher screen resolutions, it is quite natural to create a website design that caters to that resolution.
B. A Beginners Guide to Web Design Courses
Fancy training courses may sound interesting and attention grabbing but could be a waste of time and money. If you are considering web designing as a serious career option, a comprehensive course is what you need. The course should enhance your chances of job opportunities. Typically, a good course should include essential programming languages like HTML, XHTML, PHP, SQL, CSS coding, Flash, Java, ASP, C, and C++ and so on. Apart from that a thorough training in Adobe Dream weaver is also required if you intend to take up this career professionally.
Recognized certification courses are another important aspect of choosing a web design course. There are training companies that offer an attractive program with their internal certificates. Employers prefer hiring candidates with certification from reputed companies like Cisco, Adobe, Microsoft and the likes. Moreover, these certifications are recognized globally, so you stand to gain better employment opportunities.
Technical courses such as web design courses can be complex at times. Some training courses offer online support, which means you can get help from any part of the world.
Before taking up web design course, research well about the training material. The study material should be interesting, complete and comprehensive. Some of the latest techniques of teaching include interactive tutorials. There are online courses that offer study from home option; they appoint personal tutors for each student. It is advisable to attend classes, since programming languages are best learned in a classroom. Once you complete a beginner's course in web designing, you can think of upgrading your knowledge through online training courses. However, initially it is good to invest some time and efforts in learning web designing through classroom training.
Proficiency of the faculty also plays an important role. Incompetent trainers will only lead to dissatisfaction. Though you cannot test the teaching skills of a faculty, you can certainly ask for an introduction session or a free classroom session before joining. As a beginner, you should consider the above-mentioned factors before you join any web design courses.
Never shop on price.
You almost never get what you expect if you aren't willing to pay properly for it. Pay careful attention to the portfolio of the website designer. Avoid web design companies that still use flash introductions on their own website.
Give a small project first. If you plan to spend a lot of money with the company, try giving them a small project first. If their service and quality of product is what you expect, they will deliver on their promises and you can move onto bigger things with that company. If they don't deliver, then you haven't wasted huge sums of money.
ALWAYS define exactly what you need before the project begins. Like it or not, a project plan with specifications is going to save a lot of trouble later on, both for you and the design company. A good project manager should be able to convey your requirements to the team properly, but good project managers are uncommon.
Due diligence. If you are getting them to do a $250 online greeting card, getting 10 references, having 4 prior meetings and asking for a 100 page specification is likely going to cause you to be tossed aside in favour of a client that is worth the trouble. On the other hand, if you are having them build the next major shopping portal for you group of 185 country-wide chain of stores and plan to have it intergrate with the services of several large companies, be absolutely sure the web design company knows what they are doing and has experience doing it. You don't want a company that is learning the ropes by using you as a guinea pig.
I hope that armed with this information you will be able to make an informed choice on which web design company, agency or firm you will use on your next project.
A. Web Design that is Screen Resolution Friendly
Surfing the web always brings up a swath of different problems all based on the different settings implemented by the web designers in their signature web designs. Among these problems is a major one that has to do with the screen resolution settings of all the different visitors who may visit any given web design. When it comes to screen resolution, it doesn’t matter how perfect and beautiful the web design may be, it is very frustrating when a viewer either cannot see the images or text properly, or the viewers have to scroll to the side to see the rest of what the site has to offer. It is truly annoying when the width of the site doesn’t fit within the width of a visitor’s monitor’s screen size.
The reason for this is that many older monitors – frequently VGA monitors – have a maximum of 640x480 pixels that they will support. There area also many visitors to your website who have older video cards. This means that no matter how good their monitor and your website, they simply will not be able to handle higher resolutions. You will need to keep this in mind when you are creating a web design for a large target audience. Actually, there are quite a few reasons to explain this web design pattern. For one, there are likely quite a number of web designers who don’t even realize the issue that they are creating. Similarly, there are those web designers who don’t care that some people will not be able to enjoy their websites. Also, we must consider that some web masters have recognized that their target audience are typically equipped with high screen resolution capabilities, and therefore are simply catering to their desired market.
It is indeed hard to believe that there are some web designers out there who can call themselves professionals and not understand the way that the different technologies used by their viewers will be impacted by the web designs that they create. Of course, web designers can’t always be blamed, since they often have the latest technologies to make their work more pleasant and professional. When it comes to those web designers who know that not everyone will be able to see their website properly, but they just don’t care are the most likely to lose the highest number of visitors. Any graphic larger than 600 by 620 pixels will definitely create a horizontal scroll bar for several website visitors. This is frustrating to visitors who have to scroll in order to read each line of text. If the webmaster simply doesn’t care, they’re turning away an awfully large number of people who could be potential clients, part of a potential network, or even contributors.
When the webmaster has recognized that the primary audience of the site has higher screen resolutions, it is quite natural to create a website design that caters to that resolution.
B. A Beginners Guide to Web Design Courses
Fancy training courses may sound interesting and attention grabbing but could be a waste of time and money. If you are considering web designing as a serious career option, a comprehensive course is what you need. The course should enhance your chances of job opportunities. Typically, a good course should include essential programming languages like HTML, XHTML, PHP, SQL, CSS coding, Flash, Java, ASP, C, and C++ and so on. Apart from that a thorough training in Adobe Dream weaver is also required if you intend to take up this career professionally.
Recognized certification courses are another important aspect of choosing a web design course. There are training companies that offer an attractive program with their internal certificates. Employers prefer hiring candidates with certification from reputed companies like Cisco, Adobe, Microsoft and the likes. Moreover, these certifications are recognized globally, so you stand to gain better employment opportunities.
Technical courses such as web design courses can be complex at times. Some training courses offer online support, which means you can get help from any part of the world.
Before taking up web design course, research well about the training material. The study material should be interesting, complete and comprehensive. Some of the latest techniques of teaching include interactive tutorials. There are online courses that offer study from home option; they appoint personal tutors for each student. It is advisable to attend classes, since programming languages are best learned in a classroom. Once you complete a beginner's course in web designing, you can think of upgrading your knowledge through online training courses. However, initially it is good to invest some time and efforts in learning web designing through classroom training.
Proficiency of the faculty also plays an important role. Incompetent trainers will only lead to dissatisfaction. Though you cannot test the teaching skills of a faculty, you can certainly ask for an introduction session or a free classroom session before joining. As a beginner, you should consider the above-mentioned factors before you join any web design courses.
Thank you so much for sharing such a valuable and informative post. A website is an important part of any business enterprise today.Choosing the Best web design company for your site is extremely important step.