It still amazes me how low the quality of a large proportion of websites across the internet is. Indeed it pains me to see clients who have paid good money to an agency with a slick sales pitch but nothing behind it to back it up with. The worst thing? The client doesn't even realise they've been sold a lemon. Is it time for a well-funded national or international regulatory body to set the bar in our industry?
Low Barrier to Entry
It's both a blessing and a curse. In many ways, it's fantastic that anyone can download a few free tools and teach themselves how to build websites; building websites is an accessible and rewarding skill for anyone to pick up very quickly. Would many of us who now work in the industry be where we are today if it wasn't for that easy learning progression during those first websites we built back in 1999 (or whenever you started). Even better, there are lots of individuals and small businesses that would leap at the chance to get a simple website constructed for the price of a few beers, so it's easy to get some basic financial reward for your website building efforts. So far so good, and let's get this straight; removing these first rungs of the ladder is not something I would condone or something that would even be possible to do.
So that's the blessing; now onto the curse. Having such a low barrier to entry inherently means that the overall quality of websites is dragged downwards. Of course there are plenty of highly-talented designers and developers out there (I'm not counting myself as one of them - that's for others to judge!) who have strived to reach the top of their game by reading, experimenting and continuing to drive their professional development through self-motivation. But back down on planet earth (where clients live), most people aren't really looking upwards and as a result, companies are paying over the odds for mediocre web solutions.
Higher quality, higher prices?
Well, that's how it should work! Though in reality, this is not always the case. This is due to the low client level understanding of the web. And who can blame them; for those outside the industry, it's generally all a mystery and the only thing that clients are generally bothered about is their search engine ranking; to hell with all that baffling talk about copywriting for the web, usable interfaces, calls to action, semantic hand coded HTML5/CSS etc. etc. If you're lucky, clients will choose agencies on reputation (although this could be on price-busting reputation rather than any reputation based on results or quality). But all too often clients will simply be swayed by a sales pitch. Which, it could be said, isn't something unique to our industry.
How do you sell quality?
Or in other words, how do you convince a client to choose your company over that agency up the road who charge the same, but who stopped bothering to move with the times and are still building blocky-looking, random stockphoto-fest-excuses-for-websites? Well the answer is a lot of talking, demonstrating and client-relationship trust-building. You'll also often see agencies gathering industry authority by nominating themselves for various local web awards set up for the very purpose of building reputation. Which is all fine, but it makes for a very expensive pre-sale process. Could there be an easier way?
An Accrediting Professional Body?
Other professional industries have them, could the web industry follow suit? Take Accountancy for example; in order to even start an accountancy practice, you have to have completed a qualification from one of several internationally regulatory bodies (CIMA, ACCA etc.) and gain several years of industry experience. It doesn't stop you book-keeping for a living before you qualify, but in order to get your own clients as a Chartered Accountant, you've got to have some hard-fought-for letters after your name. This sets the bar high, and also means that people looking for an accountant can see whether a person is qualified to practice. Admittedly, there's still plenty of room for ending up with a qualified but incompetent accountant, but it does at least mean the person you're hiring has experience and it reduces the chance of landing yourself a lemon.
So could it work? Could a regulatory and accrediting body be set up for the web industry to set a "gold standard for demonstrating professional competence and commitment"? If properly implemented, it would certainly help those truly committed to furthering their professional development to differentiate themselves from the has-beens. I fear there would be some obstacles to overcome though, not least the problem with many web design and development courses which are out-of-date before they've even started. How would a body stay relevant to the ever-changing technologies and trends of the internet? And how would it accommodate the multi-faceted nature of the web industry these days, which encompasses everything from graphic design communication and marketing to software development and usability.
Certainly food for though, but don't sack your sales team just yet.
Welcome to the new website! What's going on I hear you ask?
Well, firstly all client project work is now being processed via Esvelte Digital Media, so if you're looking for web design, development or digital marketing services, head on over to the Esvelte website >
Meanwhile, this site has become my personal space for blogging etc. I'll be offering commentary and opinions on everything from design and coding to marketing, running a web agency and photography (and perhaps even music...)
Hope you like the new design! No doubt there's plenty more tinkering to be done, but that's for another day.
Around 10 years working in PHP and this is the first time I've ever had it speak to me in Hebrew...
Ever had this error? No me neither. It's pretty cryptic, but with a quick bit of Googling, it turns out that:
PAAMAYIM means "twice" in Hebrew while
NEKUDOTAYIM means "colon"
So in other words, you've got an errant double colon in your PHP code. Or in my case, I'd just missed off a $ on a variable name. PHP3 used the Israeli developed Zend Engine, so apparently there are still some elements of the original language in there all these years later in PHP5!
Interesting fact? You decide.