Employing a Web Designer...

oHUTCHYo

oHUTCHYo

oHUTCHYo

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Joined
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Location
North East
I've taken control of the marketing aspect of the business I work for, an aged manufacturing company who operates in a myriad of industry sectors, which badly needs to update it's website and presence on social media etc.

In the past we have always subbed this work out and the results have been, in my opinion, as so they've been made by a 16 year old in his bedroom in the era of myspace!

  • As part of the recruitment process, I'd like your advice GD...
  • During the interview stages, to truly understand their technical nous in web design and are the real deal, what are the keywords I should be listening for. In the sense of software packages, web design terminology etc?
  • Same question as above, but what software packages in terms of digital manipulation, illustration, mailing etc?
  • Budgeting for hardware and software? Mac? Software? How much shall I budget to buy this person the tools they will need.
  • Whats the hot stuff right now, all of this Web 2.0 talk, is it simply the use of flash etc? Again, buzz words I need please.
Any other advice?
 
Would need to know the scope of your business. I say this because you can go from 20k websites built from scratch to Wordpress/joomla websites edited by someone to look just as good for 1k.
What's the business and what's the requirements of the site.
 
I'd prefer some anonymity, but can offer some detail...

  • Metals manufacturer
  • Annual turnover circa £20M
  • Engage with all walks of life, from engineer to architect, from back street fabricator through to Nissan
  • Markets include construction, filtration, automotive, distribution etc. etc.

In other words, it needs to be a professional, corporate website which can cater to a variety of users. We have a mammoth product portfolio which will be a major challenge. We wont have any commerce on the actual site itself (i.e. a webshop).
 
Don't go playing the buzzword game unless you understand what they mean. You will:

- put off candidates who know their stuff as decent people don't generally want to work for clueless muppets
- end up with someone who just happens to lie better than you

Interview them like you are going for a B2B relationship - the questions you asked about packages, budget etc are sensible ones to ask them.

Who are your customers ? I'm guessing your business is B2B, so social media really ought to just be a decent company profile on linked in. I would avoid the rest.
 
I've been involved with updating our company websites for the past 9-10 years, we now have 4 diffrent websites we run as we own multiple companies. We have gone down the route of an internal website designer in the past and also gone the route of a professional web design service based in the UK on more than one occasion.

However, we now outsource it all to a company in India, who have been by far the best option we have come across and our latest e-commerce website which was highly customized on a magento platform cost us £2.5k, this would have cost around £15K-20K if we went for the UK route.

I know it's not answering the question you asked, but I honestly don't think a single web designer will do the job as well unless your going to be paying big money. Obviously going the outsourced route you will need to put in more work to generate the content.

What happens if the web designer you employ leaves after 12 months? Will someone else be able to pick it up and update it as needed? It just sounds like a potentially expensive risk.

The people we use are:

http://www.czargroup.net/

We went through about 5 different companies until we found the above one.

Be warned, they will work fast and expect you to supply content to them quickly! we struggle to keep up with them.
 
As the other guy said, don't talk and ask them about things you don't understand. It comes across really badly and you'll be picked up on very quickly.
 
kayomani said:
Ask if they prefer asp or php for the backend and how they would go about implementing responsive design.
Click to expand...

That is a pointless question. Most designers will be tailoring work to use on a mainstream CMS platform (Drupal, Expressionengine, Wordpress etc) , or their own inhouse one.

i dont understand why you just aren't outsourcing this work though to a company, rather than pay someone - surely that is going to end up costing more?
 
You're thinking about skills they need but not the scope of your project. You need to manage it as such; detail requirements for the site, including features and key functionality. When hiring someone to do it, you want to see examples of their past work. A portfolio is the best way to understand what someone has done. Not just how it looks but how they implemented it.
Ask them how they would solve one of the problems that you're facing with your current site.
 
oHUTCHYo said:
I've taken control of the marketing aspect of the business I work for, an aged manufacturing company who operates in a myriad of industry sectors, which badly needs to update it's website and presence on social media etc.

In the past we have always subbed this work out and the results have been, in my opinion, as so they've been made by a 16 year old in his bedroom in the era of myspace!

  • As part of the recruitment process, I'd like your advice GD...
  • During the interview stages, to truly understand their technical nous in web design and are the real deal, what are the keywords I should be listening for. In the sense of software packages, web design terminology etc?
  • Same question as above, but what software packages in terms of digital manipulation, illustration, mailing etc?
  • Budgeting for hardware and software? Mac? Software? How much shall I budget to buy this person the tools they will need.
  • Whats the hot stuff right now, all of this Web 2.0 talk, is it simply the use of flash etc? Again, buzz words I need please.
Any other advice?
Click to expand...


Of course I would say this, but if the site is going to have lots of writey bits consider employing a copy writer to make sure it is done properly. Compared to the expense of a web site, the writing side is peanuts and can have a hugely positive impact. The amount of expensive sites I've been on that haven't even used a proofreader is staggering - it only hurts business and makes you look unprofessional and cheap, especially when you remember that the writing can be re-used in lots of other ways.
 
oHUTCHYo said:
In the past we have always subbed this work out and the results have been, in my opinion, as so they've been made by a 16 year old in his bedroom in the era of myspace!
Click to expand...

I would put money on that 'design' being what the customer wanted.

Any other advice?
Click to expand...
Hire somebody or find somebody in house with the skills to put together a specification define a style first. You can define style simply by listing sites / elements of sites you like and wish to copy (sorry, be the inspiration of your own completely unique style). Then appoint somebody senior enough (board) to stick to the spec when more senior people start tweaking 'because they like flashy bits'.

It sounds like you're diving straight into hardware, software, techy buzzwords (why??) - but your spec is 'modern and social'.
 
Slightly different as I'm freelance but when I go to a prospective client meeting I don't use buzzwords or technical jargon. That's just part of my philosophy again this may differ for you but I assume that the person wanting the site is wanting me to do it for them as they either dont have the technical skills or knowledge to do so (9/10) or just dont have the time.
If they don't have the technical skills then they wont understand the buzzwords or jargon so why use it. I see you mention web 2.0 but don't know what that is... proving my point of why I don't use that term.
Words to look out for are responsive - works with most web browsers screen sizes
CMS - Wordpress / Joomla / Expression Engine / SharePoint (shudder) so that none web designers can update the content.

As others have said look at their portfolio... I would question why you need to employ a full time web designer/dev though. Unless your site is going to be updated fairly often.

If it was me I'd look at a Web design company ( rather then freelancers if you have had bad experiences if that makes you more comfortable ) to design you a site and go from there. Otherwise I can see your web designer just been sat twiddling there thumbs after the site has gone live.
 
Find a modern web agency, spend about 10k and be done with it. You'll get something that looks decent and you can update the content. It would cost vastly more to hire someone and I bet the result won't be as good.
 
Rather than going into an interview with lots of buzz words I would go along the lines of letting the candidate chuck the buzz words at you and then you getting the candidate to explain these to you and explain how they would be beneficial to your company.

For instance the candidate could say "I could build a Responsive Isomorphic JavaScript site for XYZ Ltd using a technology such a React as the view layer communicating to the backend using a REST API built with a PHP Framework such Laravel or Codeignitor"

Lots of buzz word but I am guessing does not mean much, asking them to explain this would be a lot more helpful to you and your company. It will also show whether he is just chucking around words with nothing to back them up.

(you)Why Responsive?
(them) The layout would change automatically based on size of screen, so no need for multiple sites etc.

(you)Why Isomorphic Javascript?
(them) Uses the server to render the JavaScript which will speed up load times and hopefully improve search engine optimization.

(you)What is React?
(them) React is JavaScript library from Facebook that focuses on only updating the screen when something changes so hopefully will result in a quicker site

etc etc.
 
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I'd question why you need to hire someone to create your website in-house rather than just outsourcing? It sounds like a fairly straightforward job.

You as the client should not need to know or care what technologies are being used. You should simply have a list of requirements and acceptance criteria - it's up to the 'expert' to determine how best to meet those.
 
Your best bet is to outsource it, frankly. As planty says, you hand over the requirements, and the developer can come up with concepts for you to review and approve.

As long as it's a site that looks good, is responsive and functional, then you're happy. Call around a few webdev companies and land a few quotes.

Oh, and as Edrof says, also make sure that they use decent copywriters, or get one in after the design is set. Don't ever skimp on the writing or allow the web development company (or, even worse, your management committee) to just throw in a load of waffling jargon on the website because it sounds professional. Your message is even more important than your design.
 
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