Owltastic Somebody asked Dan Cederholm this question today. I know. I couldn’t believe it either. Actually, I think their precise words were “can’t someone just get a copy of Front Page, and make their own website? I mean what’s the difference?” Once you’ve stopped shuddering, read on for some ranting.
Okay, before I get going, I should note that the offender doesn’t work in the web industry, and probably doesn’t really understand much about the workings of the web. Dan, who is known for his humility despite being profoundly talented and respected amongst his peers, simply responded with something about web standards, nodded and smiled at the inquirer’s website, and made his exit for today’s Lunch Bunch.
While great Indian food and conversation did help to distract me, as soon as we returned to the office I was fuming about the questioner’s remarks. It touches on a sore spot for me, since I got my start working at a software development company that placed no value on standards based web development, and I had to fight a lonely battle to help my superiors see the light. (Luckily, Jason and Brian came up with this amazing video presentation which weakened their resolve to suck.)
So, like George in that episode of Seinfeld where “the ocean called, they’re running out of shrimp,” I thought for most of the day about an adequate response to the (by now probably tired) question: why get the best possible web developer for the job? And why, as a growing designer, should I take the time and care that Dan uses to craft markup? If it’s something any 16 year old with Dreamweaver can do for a hundred bucks, then why should I bother?
So after a few hours of fuming, here’s the response I came up with.
The difference between a FrontPage website and a SimpleBits website is like the difference between a $30 chipboard dresser from K-Mart and an armoire made by a furniture designer / carpenter.
The former will last you about 6 months before somebody puts something heavy on top, it cracks it in half, and you get splinters in your fingers dragging it out to the trash. The latter will be sturdy, able to hold up under pressure and withstand new content and new homes over the years.
The K-Mart dresser says to visitors to your home that you place no real value on the design of your furniture, or the contents it holds. It says you are cheap, that you don’t care about getting a homogenized, factory assembled item that may have cost you less up front but will inevitably need replacing in only a short time. The armoire says that you care about presentation, and that you value durability and artistry. These might be the kind of qualities you’d want to convey to your visitors.
And lastly, people will look back at the armoire one day and think that it is a perfect example of furniture design for that time, the way the guys on The Antiques Roadshow are always raving about the simplicity and elegance of a Quaker chair. Nobody will ever rave about the K-Mart dresser, not even the poor 16 year old settling for minimum wage who is trying to sell it to you.
It’s sort of like the difference between buying a Dell from the kid at Best Buy who’s just happy to no longer be delivering pizzas, and going to the Boylston Street store to discuss purchasing a Mac in a One-to-One session. But that’s a whole other argument.
I should note, before some Event Apart attendee calls me out on it, that I’m not the first one to make the furniture / web site metaphor. A true Vermont boy, Dan drew this craftsmanship comparison way before I could think of it. He’s probably just too polite to say so.
So what do you guys think of my comeback? Is this the jerk store of responses? Have a better answer? Comment it up, kids.
Also, I’m working on those wallpaper requests. Look for those soon.
25 Comments
Meagan,
This is a great article. @bokardo gave a wonderful presentation at the Style & Markup society a while back – which was basically a call-to-arms for the craftsman/craftswoman. I think it made a lot of people step back and really think about WHY we do what we do. Whether frontend, backend, dbadmin, sysadmin…we are all doing what we do with a sense of craftsmanship. Stepping back, and taking pride in our creations, with the knowledge that they will last a long time (at least by web-standards). I wish there was a transcript of @bokardo ‘s talk that I could link to here – but Dan can tell you all about it.
Brilliant! I will definitely be linking to this article quite a bit. This question comes up too frequently and I never seem to have as eloquent and well-thought-out a response as this. Nice work.
(PS – I’m still completely jealous of you … working with Dan must be awesome!)
Great article, but if I started ‘fuming’ every time I got asked that (or a similar) question I think I would have spontaneously combusted by now.
I normally just respond with a simple, “It’s like comparing a Ferrari to an old Datsun” or similar – Everyone knows cars and as much as that lacks depth or description, that metaphor pretty much sums it up for the idiotic generation.
“I got my start working at a software development company that placed no value on standards based web development, and I had to fight a lonely battle to help my superiors see the light.”
That part made me laugh…
Great post Meagan.
Meagan,
I like the analogy you present here. I think this really happens in just about every industry – product based and service based. The challenge we face is that our industry or product is so new and people (the consumer or client) aren’t educated at all. They really have no idea what it takes to build from scratch, let alone bring 12+ years experience to the table in a short lived industry. You can judge a wooden masterpiece by just looking at it…and maybe you can judge a website by looking at it, but under the hood is where it counts and a customer just has no idea what that means…I’m rambling, but I feel your (and Dan’s) pain.
Education is key…and it will take time, but I hope we make it (for our sakes)
Chris
I don’t remember where I heard/read this story but its one I used back when I was doing web development and got similar questions. My response was always built around this story, tailored to what I knew about the person I was having the conversation with.
A nuclear powerplant was having a meltdown and nobody could figure it out. Everyone was in a panic and didn’t know what to do. Finally someone remembered a technician who knew the plant very well. They called him up. The tech came over, assessed the situation, and pressed a single button. The meltdown stopped.
The tech gave the plant owner a bill for one million and one dollars. The owner, preplexed at the bill said, “you just pushed a button! I could have done that.” The tech replied “the dollar is for pushing the button. The million is for knowing which button to push.”
Our industry works in a similar fashion. Sure, anyone can purchase whatever tool and build a website. But web professionals are not simply building websites. We are, hopefully, building websites that push the right buttons. SimpleBits has always been an outstanding example of this. Your value proposition is not that you can build a website. Anybody with Front Page can do this. Its that you can build website that pushes the right buttons for the project. This is something no tool will do. It takes the experience and talent of a trained professional.
While you make some good points, the somebody who asked Dan these questions also makes a point. Yes, anyone can more or less make a website these days and in 10-15 years, less than half of us will be “developers”.
More arguments a web shop could make to a typical “somebody”:
-anyone can do it, but we can a) certainly do it faster than you ever could and b) make it looks 100x better – see our portfolio.
-we could install an analytics package, create content-rich pages and analyze ongoing data trends to help you convert more leads…can you do that?
-if your business somehow happens to grow 600% in the next year, chances are you will need some form of ecommerce solution or ongoing development. either way, the site you already constructed will be extremely difficult to work with.
-an optimal starting point will help leverage you in the search engine game over your competitors
and so on….
I’m not going to leave a verbose response because I believe everyone else before me pretty much hit the nail on the head. Great article. It had me sitting in my chair thinking “I’m definitely going to have to borrow this the next time I’m asked that”. Well done. Your writing style is top notch.
Nice one, Meagan. I only wish I could think of a response like this at the right time. Maybe now, I will.
Chris said: “You can judge a wooden masterpiece by just looking at it…”
Not completely though! I’ve been using the “dovetail joint” as an example. You might not notice the craftsmanship that goes into a piece of furniture until you start using it, opening a drawer for example.
The quality and ways we implement design are kind of like the “dovetail joints” in creating web sites.
Maybe the K-Mart dresser just means that you’re on a budget. You might really want to get a lovingly hand-crafted armoire made out of endangered trees, but you could go through several dozen K-Mart dressers for the same price. You can take the money you saved on something that just holds your clothes and put it toward something more critical (maybe nicer clothes).
To feebly extend your analogy, the clothes would be the thing you’re really building/selling/doing. We’d all love to have simplebits build our website, Frank Lloyd Wright design our office building, and Picasso paint our walls while we work away at the thing that pays our bills, but we have to made tradeoffs (including hiring people who are alive to do those other things).
I would choose a different analogy to answer the original question: why hire someone to build your house when you can just go out and buy the materials and tools and do it yourself? Nothing stops you from doing that, but you’ll get much better results from an experienced professional. You could also build a house without following local building codes, but [insert rest of analogy to web standards here].
But I enjoyed your post.
(I couldn’t post a comment with Chrome, btw.)
I think that approaching this problem by emphasizing the craftsmanship involved in creating sturdier, more polished sites is the right way to go, but I think that there’s a bit of a flaw in your analogy – and it’s something that the cynical offender may point out:
Life of the finished product.
The difference in usable life between a K-Mart chipboard dresser and a masterfully hand-crafted armoire is so stark that there really is no comparison. You said it yourself – you may get 6 months out of the K-Mart dresser, but the armoire will last for generations. It’ll be handed down and bought in antique stores in many years time.
In contrast, most websites don’t have the kind of longevity that the armoire does. They’re malleable and even ephemeral in nature. They get changed over time – redesigned, rebuilt – sometimes frequently. They may only exist for a short period of time to serve a single purpose (like movie websites, for instance). And whether they were slapped together in Front Page or lovingly crafted, these aspects of websites remain a constant.
This isn’t to detract from the craftsmanship argument at all. Perhaps it could be more accurately represented by comparing 2 things which have a closer life span. Say, a Kia with a BMW?
Nice post, Meagan.
This reminds me of a talk that Zeldman gave at AEA San Francisco, where he said that we (web designers) get no respect, compared to other professions. To me, that’s because anyone can use a text editor, nowadays, and some can produce images, as well. They’re two easy tasks, after all.
This is why, and I back this up with my personal experience, sometimes clients simply refuse to pay the right amount of money required for the job.
It’s not that we’re greedy or something; we’re asking that amount of money because you’re not only buying a site, you’re buying my knowledge as well, the hours I’ve spent reading books and talking with colleagues about the stuff we do.
The end product simply won’t be comparable with something done by a teen with a WYSIWYG editor.
A website, to me, is perceived as something optional, something we can live without even if we’re running some sort of business.
So while one would pay more to, say, get a better car, that doesn’t necessarily imply that the same guy would do it as well for a piece of furniture, like you said, or a watch. They’re not so important, compared to a thing that could affect your safety while driving. Perhaps, this is the case for a website too.
I was just discussing this with an associate. He (being the complete web designing newb) stated that “tables were just as good as DIVs.” I was astounded, taken aback! I couldn’t believe it. My associate is a great graphic designer. His websites actually look pretty good, but they only use tables.
I still have no idea how to respond to that prompt. I love web standards, and I make sure I’m XHTML 1 compliant in everything I do, but why should I? If tables work just as well, why should one use DIVs instead of the other?
(Late to the party.)
@Leland Clemmons: If tables work just as well, why should one use DIVs instead of the other?
If tables worked just as well, there would be no reason to use divs. But they don’t. Your associate might be able to use tables to get his page to look right in several browsers, but keyboard-based navigation will be unintuitive, screen readers will choke, users with smaller displays may have to scroll horizontally (rather than floated divs dropping to the next “line”), etc. It lacks accessibility in nearly every regard.
Tables are for tabular data, not griddy layouts.
@Meagan:
Thanks for doing a much better job of this than I did.
OMG, thank you so much. I have been working for a company over 18 months know, that neither value graphic design nor web design. it took me a while (actually 17 month) to realize that, because I never gave up the hope. But I must honestly say that when you are cheap, you are cheap. Yet they like driving the big name cars with millions of dollars in marketing and advertising and quality parts.
The best question I ever received was: “Can you put the online store together now, in a day”?
I always go bonkers when someone tells me that their son or daughter will create that website for 50 bucks.
I friend of mine (graphic design studio owner) told me once that she wishes clients well when they complain about prices. She says that it is not worth the money to work with a client that thinks they know things better.
I will have to sort of learn to apply this philosophy….
Thanks for your article, it showed me that I am not alone out there
Fashionably late arrival here.
“If it’s something any 16 year old with Dreamweaver can do for a hundred bucks, then why should I bother?”
The problem is… it’s not JUST 16 year olds… I’ve seen a ton of “web studios” that code as if it were still 1995, font tags and everything! I’ve even gone as far to send them emails to get with the times (heh).
What’s even more of a concern for me, being a senior @ johnson & wales university, is what’s being taught to students… thankfully my school is drenched with professors who know the standards. But I know students from other colleges, that I shan’t name here, that are still learning HTML 4 specs.
But the web industry isn’t like any other in many regards… mainly because, if you’re a designer / developer, it’s impossible to live under a rock… you’re working on the web all the time, and, if you have any interest in the field at all.. you’ll wonder onto a site one day, see a new feature you don’t recognize, and view the source. Maybe it’s just me, but if someone coding with tables see a site with all divs, they’ll be like “oh, hey… what’s that all about” and google it.
So, that’s my rant. thanks for reading!
Great post. I like the analogy that you’ve made.
Buuut..
1. Some people have great taste, but they may not be able to afford an armoire made by a well-known furniture designer or a site built by any great agency out there.
2. You’ve made a connection between cheap and bad quality, which I don’t believe is entirely true. I’ve seen plenty of designers (both freelancers and in small agencies) that make great websites (that validate) for peanuts compared to what designers in big design/ad agencies get paid and the latter’s sites are still in tables!
3. I dislike the 16 year old with Dreamweaver reference. I don’t expect a 16 year old to own a Mac Pro, 30″ Cinema Display, a Wacom Tablet or any other professional equipment. That 16 year old probably “borrowed” that copy of Dreamweaver too! The kid may have talent and using Dreamweaver may be the only way he knows to make websites. Hey, I used to use Windows once upon a time. I hope the 16 year old with Dreamweaver grows up into a 20-something using Coda
Hi Meagan,
A timely article Meagan. I’ve encountered the equivalent. My future brother-in-law once said to me something similar – ‘you can get a website for £60′. I’ve thought long and hard about that statement. It really wounded me and made me feel kind of worthless for a long time. But since I’ve been full time as a web designer since March I’ve come to realise what nonsense that is. You can buy a car for £60 or £600’000 are they the same thing? Of course now. It does depress me though that we get such little respect which comes from a lack of understanding. Which is because so much of what we do is: ‘under the hood’. The question is, what can we do about it?
Lovely website and great post Meagan.
All the best,
AL
Most people don’t want a KMart prefab crap OR a 19th century armoire. They want something that’ll hold their clothes and not cause them problems. Some people want armoires. You’re lucky to be making web sites for that kind of person — but inevitably different people have different quality requirements and it’s all good and valid.
If my plumber had a web site designed by Dan Cederholm then the main message it sends to me is “find a cheaper plumber”. On the other hand if he had a site built himself in Frontpage I’d probably never look at it. So what’s the happy medium? What should the person who can’t afford a designer or design skills do?
I came across this blog via a crooked path. Long story. But I wanted to comment on this old post because I too hear this (since I am a web designer/flash developer).
Here’s my thing, while I agree with you in concept, I think you and Dan are missing some very vital points in your careers and design.
The web design industry is polar right now. On one side you have people who throw together $30 websites, and the other side spend time and money developing a very good looking website. But is one better than the other? No! And that is the perspective you are missing.
So you design great looking sites (and you do, I’ve looked at some.) But what do they do? The $30 website is an online business card. A beautifully designed website is still an online business card.
How many meetings have you gone to where someone hands you a business card and it looks like they photoshopped it themselves and printed it on their own printer? And other times you get a business card that looks like they spent a million bucks on it? And you think WOW! That is a great looking business card. Well, so what? It is still a business card! Which is better? Neither since the content and purpose is the same.
Oh, now I know you can say a client will most likely call back or do business with the better looking business card. Maybe. But that still is not the point.
We have a responsibility as web designers not only in making a pretty website, but also to push the client by asking them, “What do you want your website to DO.” It has to DO something and not be a brochure or business card. Challenge your website visitors, engage them. Keep them interested, keep them coming back, make them LEARN something, make them DO something.
Push for that!
Jack
A little late, but just stumbled upon this piece.
The ignorance of people never fails to amaze me, but somehow I’ve gotten used to the misconceptions about the web. I believe our time will come though
In case this comes up again, how about those for replies:
“Would you use hand-written notes as your business cards?”
OR
“Want to try performing an open-heart operation with a spoon?”
Hi,
What a great blog post!
The only part that I have to disagree with you on is the whole Dell vs. Apple debate. As I was looking to get a laptop for college I knew I needed one with a high resolution screen for web design, leading me to decide between the 17″ Macbook Pro and the 16″ Dell SXPS. I got the Dell for over $1,000 less, it still has most of the same features, and it came with a 3 year accidental damage warranty. Not to mention it looks smokin’.
The only reason IMO to get a Mac is either because it’s worth the price premium or you need software specific to a Mac ex. Logic Pro, Final Cut, etc.
Anyway, great post again. Thank you for this wonderfully designed site! I found OWLTASTIC on a best design showcase from webdesignerwall.com
Hmm. I absolutely agree with Meagan. The car analogy works too, as do the spoon surgery and handwritten business cards (though I have seen one artist use them effectively).
I’ve heard people make the argument saying that in the end a cheap site and a great site both do the same thing, but they just don’t. Sure a $500 car and a $50,000 car, and a $500,000 car all do the same things, but the class, experience, and performance differences are astronomical.
The Mac thing Jake mentioned though…
It’s the same idea. The class, performance, and experience of using a Mac is in a whole different world from any Dell. There’s no comparison. Pro tools for pro work.
My 2 cents worth.
Great article, Meagan!
Great website, Meagan. Thanks for this example and place for feedback, yes, this is distressingly familiar! I often work with nonprofits and can’t make the K-Mart or foreign car comment. But I will say, “bring on the 16 year old!” Let’s compare the two sites for 1 year and measure them on upfront costs versus 1 year benefits. We’ll measure (1) money you’ve raised online (always more with mine because donate button has client photo on it/and “success stories” on inside donate page). (2) Supporters gained (because mine will have a well-placed email list, even if it is a Yahoo group), a 16-year old never thinks of this. (3) Program goals accomplished (volunteers or action-alerts sent or whatever). A 16-year old never asks what the clients mission and goals are–much less making them a prominent ask on relevant pages.
Basically, a 16-year old never thinks of mission and measurable goals, just “how cool can I make this brochure-ware?” As a professional/teacher, I can’t code as well as Dan or Meagan (yet!), but I can force the client to (1) identify mission and overall goals for next 1-2 years, (2) focus on functionality that bolsters #1 PRIORITIZING END USERS, and ONLY THEN (3) deal with design & content that bolsters #1 & 2. Lastly, test with real-life clients/end users (who hopefully had some say at at #1-3) and make sure it is usable for them.
Yes, this is a lot easier at a smaller nonprofit than a big company. But, at least at a big company you probably have a business plan and goals already.
Thanks for the forum… and the hope!
Does your site have a contact page? I’m having problems locating it but, I’d like to send you an email. I’ve got some suggestions for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great blog and I look forward to seeing it expand over time.
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[...] Web Designers get this all the time. “My 16 year old nephew designs websites in his basement with Dreamweaver. He’ll make me a website for much less than you charge!” Meagan, a truly great designer from Simplebits.com, goes into detail on the issue, and why we need designers who are true craftsmen, not just cheap purveyors of commodity items. Well worth the read. [...]