Posted by Tony Cooper on 10/19/05 20:48

On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 16:48:56 +0100, Andy Dingley
<dingbat@codesmiths.com> wrote:

>On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 12:33:45 GMT, Tony Cooper
><tony_cooper213@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>>If I was in the market to purchase website design, I can't imagine
>>hiring a designer that would argue with me about the content,
>
>So who are you hiring here? A designer, a coder or a consultant?

That depends entirely on the job. It also depends on what the person
being hired decides to call himself. The title "consultant" is not
like "licensed pilot". "Consultant", in itself, doesn't mean
anything.

The "content", as I have used it, is what shows up on the screen in
text and graphics. It doesn't refer to how what shows up gets up.

>A coder does what you tell them (they've been largely extinct since the
>'80s).
>
>A designer makes a design that meets some outline brief. You can change
>the brief, but you shouldn't pick holes in a design that meets the brief
>- pick a designer you can work with and let them do their job.
>
>A consultant is someone you go to with the brief "Design me a site for
>my new TV cartoon tie-in". They'll tell you to make Flash optional and
>lightweight on the homepage and main nav, use it entirely to implement
>those nice interactive games, and to avoid it completely on the shopping
>pages where parent is pestered to buy the tie-in toys. You are engaging
>this person because they know what they're doing, in a field where you
>don't. You either didn't need them, or you should be listening to them -
>don't spend money just to ignore what they tell you.

What do you mean I don't know what I'm doing? If I'm in the business
of selling garden decorations to trailer park residents, I should know
exactly what I'm doing and what appeals to that market. You - the
consultant or designer or whatever - should know how to make the site
come up on the screen and do what its supposed to do.

The client's responsibility should be "this is the effect I'm going
for", and the supplier's responsibility should be "here's how you can
achieve that".

I'm not suggesting that Flash should not be optional and lightweight,
but I am suggesting that if I say that I want the effect of Flash,
your job is to provide it the way it works best and not to say that I
don't need or want that effect. If your suggestion is that a nice,
pebbled beige background is going to work best, then damn right I'm
going to ignore the suggestion if I think that the animated purple
windmill will draw my target market's interest.

I hope I don't have to say this, but - in case - I have no interest or
experience in selling garden decorations to trailer park residents.
I also dislike animated things on websites and music that starts
automatically. I rather like purple, though.



--


Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL

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