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The State of Irish Web Design

There are a number of reasons to write an article about the state of Irish Web Design. Smashing Magazine did an excellent round-up of some of the best designer/developers in the country and a showcase of their sites. They also showcased other Irish sites that truly were of a high standard. And I was very pleased that there were SO many really excellent sites about Irish things or by Irish designers. Unfortunately I’m coming at this from the opposite side… Not because I want to denigrate, but because it’s not all rosy in the Irish webdesign garden and that’s not OK.

Jack of all trades…

Unfortunately in current times, people feel like they have to be able to do everything, to be able to offer every service to their customers. And to be honest I’m as guilty as the next person of this. I have a keen interest in the web, and I’m a half decent developer. I love design but I know that my design work isn’t great – so I don’t do any for clients. I outsource that for almost every job I do, as I owe it to my client to give them the best possible product.

… Master of none

Some companies however, take this to another level – I know of a number of computer repair shops, that offer “web-design” and pretty much every other computer “related” service that they could fit on a flyer. This leads to a distortion of the market, as you have these people offering their services at a very low price, so some actual designers, maybe starting out or whatever, feel like they have to be able to match this.

Along with this, some potential customers, looking to get a price reduction, will point out that these people can do it cheaper. You do not want these clients – if they can’t tell the difference between a real designer, and someone chancing their arm, then it does not bode well for the project.

Hopefully, people are able to tell what they are getting before they approach a designer.

Its for that reason that I believe there are two problems in the Irish equation – uneducated clients and bad web designers.

Uneducated Clients

The number of times that a small business owner has said to me that their 15 year old nephew/niece is a brilliant web designer is beyond counting at this stage. And perhaps I’m being unfair – maybe they are the next Chris Spooner, Meagan Fisher or Grace Smith. But I’ve heard it so many times that this is virtually impossible.

And unfortunately this boils down to the fact that although these business owners (apparently) know quite a lot about the subject matter they deal in, they know little or nothing about the web. This is of course a shame. But not the end of the world. I feel to really help these people you must be able to educate them as to why something is a good idea. Or a bad idea. And most of the time they will listen and understand and learn. And once we get to that stage the relationship can only get better. And your job then becomes much more rewarding. And hopefully you’ve earned yourself a repeat client.

Bad Web Designers

Full disclosure – I have made some really terrible websites in my time. But I never charged anyone for them – They were back when I started out and they were for friends. I never would have advertised the fact that I was a web designer. In fact – I still don’t. I love design but I love development more – And I’m much better at it too – In my opinion .

As I mentioned above more and more people are offering themselves as web designers, and they really shouldn’t be allowed. I’ll stop short of advocating that there should be some kind of test before people can call themselves a Web Designer… but only just.

Unfortunately, these “designers” cause a distortion or blur the market for young good web designers. When starting out and looking for a steady amount of work or in the current economic climate, you may take on work that you would never have taken on normally – and these clients can sometimes cause problems because they can’t tell the difference between these cowboy designers and you – the excellent designer.

Not Specific to Ireland?

The more research I did on this I realised that Ireland is not really the only country that suffers from this. You have the same issues all over the world. But Ireland is in a fairly unique situation, we’re a tiny country – with a population which is punching well above its weight in the creative world. You just have to look at all the world renowned poets, musicians, artists and authors. In the business world, you can look at all the Irish companies doing very well around the world, or all the Irish CEO’s of leading companies around the world.

We have an excellent and unique opportunity to educate our business owners on usability, on accessibility – to ensure that they get the website that they need to further their business. The website that their users deserve.

(Main image attribution: uggboy on Flickr)