Here’s a common question along small business owners and non profits : “Do you know a good web designer who can build my company or organization a nice web site”? The worst situation is: ” My 17 year old nephew has offered to build one for me , cheap”… Ouch.
Here’s a response from Barbara Saunders from a network of non profit professionals in San Francisco. I think it sums up quite well the issues behind building a good web site, depending on an organization’s needs.
- Be sure to understand what exactly you need in a designer/developer. Creating a Web site really takes four sets of skills — project management, editorial, visual/design, and technical.
- Be wary of talented visual artists/designers with limited editorial or technical skills. (They often produce beautiful sites that are difficult to navigate, overly visual sites, or sites that are technically troubled.)
- Make sure someone in your organization has a good grip on the editorial planning.
- Project management can be done by someone in-house or by the designer/developer — you will pay more if your developer also has to manage the process.
In my opinion, the best scenario is having a staff person who is a strong editor manage the project, get a very strong technical person engaged next, and have the visual designer answer to those two. It is extremely rare that all of these skills exist in one person (or even two.)
From what I understand of learning theory, some of these talents are generally opposed — especially the abstract visualization that makes a great editor or programmer and the visual-spatial aptitude that typically makes a great artist. Whenever you see a dazzling site that you can’t find your way around, you can surmise that a visual-spatial person designed it without help.
Understand what you’ve got and what you need. Some wonderful vendors who worked for other people may not be the right fit for you if you don’t have the right staff in place.
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Barbara R Saunders
Creative, Editorial, and Publishing Services
