How to Identify a Web Designer
Oct 14, 2009 In Design By Nishant Kothary 
A couple years ago, Microsoft hired me as a User Experience Evangelist. Since then, I've worked with amazing designers, artists, and thinkers from some of the best agencies in the world—and learned a lot about recognizing a great web designer when I see one.
If you're in the market for a web designer or agency, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Not Just UX.
These days, it seems like every other person I come across has "UX" in his title. Somehow, the term has come to imply that you are an expert at designing anything and everything—especially web sites. But web design is not just UX.
Web design relies on a unique set of cross-disciplinary and specialized skills that require a "renaissance person" attitude to master. If you don't believe me, go spend some time at A List Apart or 24 Ways.
In other words, being good at web design means being good at a lot. You have to understand browsers and markup languages. You have to grasp the basics of several cross-disciplinary fields, like content strategy and graphic design. All this, while staying firmly grounded in the reality of how everyday users browse the Web.
Take any one of the above qualities out, and you're left with someone who's not a web designer. Not worth their salt, anyway.
I-Shaped People
In a recent article, Bill Buxton argued that innovation calls for I-Shaped People: thinkers who have their feet firmly planted in the practical world, but who can also stretch their heads to the clouds-and simultaneously span all of the space in between.
In other words, you need people who are comfortable with both practice and theory. I've found that "I-shaped" web designers are best kind.
What To Look For
Most people don't know someone who can identify a good web design agency for them. If you're DIY-ing, are here the most important questions to ask in your evaluation:
- Do they have an impressive portfolio of HTML/CSS web sites? A couple of good examples: BlueFlavor & thingsthatarebrown. This is the most important question.
- Do they advertise their information architecture services?
- Are they passionate about developing standards-compliant web sites?
- Do they specialize in building web sites?
If you answered "no" to any of these questions, I suggest you keep looking.
What's my point?
If you are a small business, product team within a corporation or even a freelance professional who’s in need of a web site, you need to carefully consider two things: 1) what you need built and 2) who is qualified to build it for you.
Chances are, you need a good, clean, standards-compliant web site built using XHTML/CSS. Unfortunately, not everyone with the words "UX" or "design" in his title could build you a good one. In fact, most couldn't. Take heed and do your research before hiring any 'ole UX guru.
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8 Comments so far. You should leave one, too.
Am I fired? Oh not wait i’m a web developer…. I wondered why I hadn’t loaded photoshop in a few years :P
The ‘Title’ and ‘idea’ of the post is great.
You are also right that Just being inclined towards web designing or being academically certified does not ensure quality about work.
Can you please elaborate more on zeroing on a Web Designer ? Something like Joels test.
Thanks for the post.
While your comments describe great qualities to which a web designer may aspire, they do not define. A website designer designs websites. Period. A “real man” is a living humanoid of the male gender. I think there is not yet a certification process for the title, “Web Designer”.
Nonetheless, thanks for your article. I’ve gleaned and bookmarked some helpful links.
nice post, not every graphic designer is a good web designer.
I have worked as IT Manager in the past and it was really hard to find good web designer.
While I agree that there is far more to being a good web designer than just good design skills, I also think it requires more than just good html/css and/or information architecture skills.
Things like good marketing/ advertising knowledge and search engine optimization skills come immediately to mind.
While I appreciate your perspective, I’m not sure that you totally described all of the traits of a good web designer either.
@Raghuraman – Really, my goal for this post was to raise a red flag and call out that the “UX” bucket is not a superset that contains “Web Design” as a part of it. In fact, their relationship is defined by an intersection. I can definitely consider doing a more in-depth post on this topic.
@fjpoblam – If I understood you correctly, agreed.
@Memphis Web Design Pro – No doubt. Maybe I should have been clearer about that. As you said, marketing, SEO skills, etc. are quick ones that come to mind. Off the top of my head, I’d add, project management and communication skills. Not to mention, these days it’s not unheard to expect web designers to be familiar with freshman/sophomore level computer science skills such as database design, object-oriented programming, etc. I could definitely list more, but I’d be digressing.
Bear in mind that many, many design agencies that market themselves as UX or interaction design firms have project managers, SEO specialists, etc. In fact, they even segment their web designers into sub-categories. That’s often the crux of the problem, though.
A good web designer is the product of several cross-disciplinary skill sets (most often, that individual is never an expert in each one of those areas, rather, he/she possesses a solid working knowledge of each). However, if you were to take individuals who each specialize in one of those skills (i.e. specialists) and put them together, the resultant team won’t necessarily be able to build you a great web site; it may, but there’s no guarantee. It’s a very Gestalt-esque concept—the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, if you think about it.
Most clients are lazy to find other designers as they get used to one. It become a habit of over reliability on the same designer which just does the same routine. I think clients should be bolder in searching for the ideal designer that worked for them. But bear in mind, who work for them today does not necessarily means it will always works for them.
Just look at people/companies portfolios before committing to giving them money such as these India based companies .