How do you find a good web developer?
You might be surprised to know how many web developers don’t know what they’re doing.
If it looks good, that’s all that counts, right?
Well, no.
And before you say, ‘that’s all that matters to me’, hear me out.
Because there are some things about websites that are different from, say, text on paper.
- More people — and things — can potentially ‘read’ a web page, for instance. Like Google. But not if it’s badly made.
- You’re going to want to update your site without spending too much money. But if it’s badly coded it’s going to cost you to dig yourself out of a hole.
- Your site gets interpreted by all sorts of different software and machines, including mobile phones, browsers, text-to-speech readers, printers, even braille readers. They can all make sense of a well coded site.
- People find their way around a website differently from the way they read a printed item. A good website works with the way people expect browsers to work, not against it.
How will your site stand up?
How to assess a web developer
You need to find out what your web developer can do for you. Four areas are particularly important.
- Can your developer design? Or, if you are using a designer, can they design for the web? The web has its own logic and constraints.
- Can your web company or person code according to web standards? Many people think that web design is just a matter of layout in a program like Dreamweaver. It’s not. And it’s certainly not constructing a site in Flash, which ignores your web browser and requires a second interface.
- Do you want to update your own site? Or ask your developer do it?
- Do you want to be able to buy and sell, or take orders, from your site?
Which of these can I do for you?
I can take care of the first two. I can also set you up with a straightforward, widely used system should you want to do your own updating. For sites that require more, I engage programming professionals.
Importantly, because I build to standards, you will never be stranded. If I’m knocked down by a bus, for example, or go to work for the United Nations (neither of which is, as far as I know, likely), another professional web developer can pick up where I left off.
To inform yourself a little more I have written a more detailed account of web standards and why you should insist upon them.