How To Choose A Web Designer

Choosing the right company to work with you on a web design project can be a daunting task. There are thousands of web design companies and freelancers out there all claiming to offer an amazing service.

So how do you choose between them? What criteria can you use to wade through the rubbish and determine which web designer will be right for your project?

Based on ours and our clients experiences, we have compiled a list of top 4 questions you should be asking designers in order to select the right one for you:

What do you specialise in?
Do you outsource?
How will you manage the project?
What support do you offer?

What do you specialise in?

The designer working on your project will of course have a huge impact on the quality of the end result – your website. That’s why you should always opt for a specialist web design agency.

Specialists are extremely important because they focus on a single area, meaning they can offer the best possible set of skills in that area. For example, you probably wouldn’t be comfortable with an electrician working on your boiler!

It is exactly the same in the web world. You must ensure that the web designer or agency you use focus solely on web over and above other related fields (i.e. print). We see all too often companies claiming to be web designers, when really their main focus is within other media. Whilst there is of course some parallel skills, there is no substitute for the specialist knowledge that a skilled web designer can provide.

Do you outsource?

To cut costs and increase profit margins, many web design agencies are now outsourcing their work to cheaper designers and developers often located overseas. This will in many cases affect the quality of the work delivered, as whoever is outsourcing cannot efficiently manage someone who is hundreds of miles away.

Why is in-house better?

Better communication – Direct contact with individuals ensures consistency, better time-frames and nothing getting lost in translation
Better work ethics – Someone who works for a company (rather than being outsourced) is going to have more of a invested interest in a project as the work reflects directly on the business they work for.
Consistency – An in-house team means that the same people will see your project from start to finish.
Better reliability and project management – Freelancers have their own schedule and own interests to look after. This means that they might not focus solely on your project which can cause unwanted delays.

How will you manage the project?

It is very important to get a good grip on how the designer or agency will manage your project from start to finish. It is important to set deadlines on when you want to see progress and when you want your project to be completed. Before starting the project, you should be provided with a work schedule with milestones of each stage.

What support do you offer?

A website is very much like a new car. When you drive it away from the dealership it running perfectly. But further down the line, it will still require a regular service in order to keep it in good condition.

It is essential that before choosing the company and investing time and money into them to ask about what support they can offer you. It’s all very well having a nice new website built, but if you can make updates when you want then you are stuck! We always offer our clients advice and support even years after completing a project. We can carry out updates and amendments on an ad-hoc basis, or for clients that need ongoing support, we also offer support contracts.

Takeaway

In the end, no matter how thorough you are, the questions above are only a small part of choosing the best web designer. We always recommend choosing a specialist agency with an in-house team who follow clear processes and can provide good levels of support. But, despite all this, it can sometimes just boil down to relationships.

Posted on 17th April 2014 by Stuart in Uncategorized