Posted by Andy Dingley on 06/26/07 23:20

On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 11:48:13 -0700, "barry@motivateddesign.co.uk"
<barry@motivateddesign.co.uk> wrote:

>Just starting life as a freelance web designer.

Hi, welcome to the shark pond.

First two rules:

1. It's about the money.

2. It's not about the technical merits of your work. Any old crap
sells, and the worse it is, the more they spend -- just look at the
rubbish that's palmed off on government IT projects!

>my site is www.motivateddesign.co.uk
>What do you think?

That said though, you've asked the techies what they think, so you're
going to get a techie view of things.

It's all a bit halfway-there to be honest. 8-(

There's an XHTML doctype to show how you're a whizzy right-up-to-2001
sort of guy, but then the pages aren't actually valid, so that's a bit
silly.

There's a "click here to validate" button, which is the web equivalent
of wearing a sign saying "Kick me". And yes, you're not all valid, and
now it's dead easy for your customers to see this, even if they didn't
know what the term meant a minute earlier..

There's stuff like this:
> <script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript">
> <!--
> function MM_reloadPage(init) { //reloads the window if Nav4 resized

Now if I were interviewing for HTML coders, I'd ask them to identify at
least 4 or 5 problems with just those few lines of code.

The <table>s have gone away in favour of <div>s, so someone was paying
attention in the lecture, but the class names are bogus and there are
dodgy looking anonymous <span>s draped all over it.

Worst of all, usability is clearly not on the gameplan as you've set
pixel-sized fonts! (read Joe Clark)

> <span class="bodyText">
> ..
> <p></p>
> Quality is everything

Yes. 8-(


So overall, it shows promise, but it's not the sort of work I'd expect
from someone who reads this newsgroup regularly. And a jobbing
designer's site must be _perfect_ if they're to wave it in front of
other geeks (although to be honest, your customers won't give a
monkey's)

As to the copy-writing, then Id like to see less about you and more
about me. Don't give me a life story (or at least, stick it out of the
way on a page I don't have to read), give me a manifesto. Tell me why
_your_ vision of how web design should be done will make _my_ site sell
2.5x as many widgets as it sold last month. Tell me what, tell me why,
but leave off the who.

> Any feedback welcome (so long as its nice)

So don't post it to Usenet.

>Also wondering what the best way to attract me clients is?

I find just going outdoors when I've forgotten to wear the "No, I will
NOT build your web site" T shirt does it.

You don't want clients, you want profitable clients. Clients who either
know what they want, or can be quickly led to what will make they happy.
Clients who can provide you the content and photo input you need,
correctly and on time. Clients who will let you do the techie stuff
they're paying you to do. Clients who don't have a teenager who "Knows
all about web design". Clients who will pay up at the end of the day.

Most clients are not like this. Most clients should be actively
_avoided_, as they're too costly to make happy for the pittance they can
afford.

You can serve this market, but only by doing the HTML equivalent of
flipping the same templated burger at every client. Personally I don't
want to do that all day.



--
Cats have nine lives, which is why they rarely post to Usenet.

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