How-To Hire a Good Web Designer and Not Lose Your Mind

Make sure that your web designer has a firm grasp of the basics:

The web designer you hire should have solid experience with HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). You should look for use of techniques that make pages load faster and are cross-browser compatible. Candidates should not be using spacer gifs and jerry-rigged tables. Instead look for pages that use CSS to position copy and page elements.

So how do you determine whether a designer has these skills? First, ask for samples of work or look at their online portfolio. Ask them to explain their design techniques. If they can’t explain what they do, how they do it, and can’t provide examples, seriously consider looking else where.

What skills will you need in a web designer?

First you will need to decide what skills you need. If your site relies heavily on server-side or database components, you may want to check for these qualifications. Does the designer have any experience with databases and can you view some of the work they have done?

On the other hand, if you don’t need any special coding skills such as ASP.NET or Java, then you will want to steer away from hiring a designer who is more skilled in these areas in order to save yourself from the extra expense of hiring an over qualified professional.

If you are planning on maintaining your own site then you will want to consider hiring a designer who will not over complicate your sites code and will be willing to work with you as you learn how to make changes to your new site.

The key here is to know your needs ahead of time and plan on interviewing web designers based on your needs.

Keep a close eye on what your web designer is doing:

Discover Web Design Tips that you can use to educate yourself on proper design techniques and watch over what your web designer is doing with your site.

Look for skills that include the use of high-end graphic tools:

Even if your site is not heavy on the graphics, you should expect your designer to have some experience with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Good designers should be able to create graphics appropriate for your pages from scratch or modify existing images.

A designers’ portfolio should be able to give you a good idea of what you can expect. Ask for a list of skill sets and see if it includes graphic design.

Your designer should know when and how to implement multimedia:

Multimedia can be a big issue when it comes to hiring web designers. The last thing you need is the gratuitous use of a Flash animation such as the massive, useless splash page whose only purpose is to toss your company logo around the screen that guarantees you will lose some impatient visitors (which accounts for just about all web surfers today).

Flash and video content definitely have their places in web development, but they should be used with a definite purpose in mind, one that holds value with your sites visitors. If your web designer doesn’t understand how to use multimedia efficiently and effectively, watch out.

Accessibility and Usability issues play an important role in today's internet standards:

Don’t expect every web designer to be an information architect expert, but general knowledge of creating a user-friendly site is a must. A good designer will understand the importance of how well a sites navigation and content flow should work together to create a smooth user-experience. Look for a well-organized Web site when you are looking to hire a web designer. The designer's own site will tell you a lot about the kind of work you can expect to receive.

Not every designer needs to be well-versed in Section 508 guidelines, at least for now. But accessibility is becoming increasingly important, and making a site accessible entails more than just adding alt text to image graphics. Again, CSS and CSS2 address some of the traditional accessibility issues, such as the heavy reliance on multiple table tags to organize content on a web page. Your designer should be able to discuss those issues and code them too.

Other questions you might need to ask..

Depending on your development needs, you may want to consider asking the following questions of your potential web designer:

• Can you develop a site that will be easy to update?
• Will I be able to update content myself?
• Do you validate your code?
• Will my site be cross-browser compatible?
• Can you also develop the back-end functions, such as a database?
• Can you develop secure e-commerce solutions or work with my existing one?
• What development languages do you know?
• Do you use frames or flash intros in your designs?
• What web-authoring and graphic software do you use?
• How quickly can you make my site load?

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Discover Web Design Tips that you can use to education yourself in using proper design techniques and watch over what your web designer is doing with your site.