As the Web evolves, it’s inevitable that the job of creating websites evolves too. As those out there in the industry will already know, the roles of the “Web Designer” can be diverse, especially on larger projects, making it more of an umbrella job description.
Anyway, I’ve decided to write about some of my thoughts about the job of a Web Designer. I also thought it might be interesting to ask people what role (or roles) they see themselves as playing in the world of Web Design.
What is Web Design?
It’s probably not a great idea to start out with what is really an aside, but bear with me on this one.
Jakob Nielsen recently wrote that “Web Design” is a misnomer. It got me thinking and I’d have to agree to some extent, but my view is slightly different to Nielsen’s. People don’t design the Web itself, but the sites reached via the Web – “Website Design” would be more accurate, but I’m just pedantic. I guess it doesn’t really matter what is the accepted phrase for referring to people who build websites – I know that I will call it “Web Design” anyway.
What I don’t like is how Web Design is often misconstrued to mean putting something pretty up online. We have known for a long time that the Web is an information medium at heart and not a visual one. This is an important concept that I feel many designers and design agencies forget on a regular basis. On an ideal Web, all designers would take information gathered by the client (or help them collate information) and allow that content to drive design. The classic maxim applies: Web Design is not Print Design. Neither is it just about Graphic Design, so simply slicing up a Photoshop comp and putting it online is not enough.
So what was the point of my aside? I wanted to raise a couple of questions. If so many designers don’t know their job and how to do it properly, how do people really know what to expect from them? How are prospective clients to know whether their website is going to fit with their purpose? Does it matter?
Roles of the Web Designer
What is perhaps a little more difficult to define is the role of the Web Designer. Recently, I’ve been thinking about all the different “modes” I have when building a website. Being self-employed, these modes can be wide and varied, and I am increasingly appreciating the need for collaboration on projects to make them stronger and generally just better.
Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and it can be important to develop a specialism or a style which sets you apart from the crowd. A problem here is that I like to explore and to learn. Hence, I will often try to vary my roles so that I can develop my skills in different areas and keep what I do interesting. I’ll have to admit now that this can cause some areas to be weaker than others between projects. This is a compromise I do not want to make if I can help it. It’s near impossible to fulfil all the roles required by Web Design today, so collaboration is an important aspect, whether it be with other agencies or freelancers.
A common distinction in roles seems to be between Web Designers and Web Developers, but even these roles can overlap. As I see it (and I could be wrong) designers are responsible for structure, layout, visual wonders, etc while developers are more geared towards developing server-side magic, applications and interaction. But there’s a lot more going on than that.
Here are some of the roles I can think of which I perform, and others that I have seen in use:
- Project Manager
- Website Designer
- Website Architect (implying working with information architecture / structure?)
- Website Developer/Engineer
- Internet Developer (another misnomer?)
- Graphic Designer or Web Graphic Designer (I’ve seen this role described as a person who “tries to make Web pages look the same in every browser”. I’m not totally agreed on that one. Anyone for “CSS Engineer”?)
- Multimedia Designer
- Web Typographer
- Flash Designer
- User Interface / Interaction Designer
- Web Usability Specialist
- Web Accessibility Specialist
- Web Marketing Specialist
- Search Engine Optimisation Specialist
- Copy Writer, Web Editor or Web Writer
Web Writer- Web Hosting Technician
- Webmaster
- Software Engineer
This probably isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s what came to mind while thinking about what I do, or have done in the past.
What Roles Do You Play?
So what do you do? Are you a multi-tasking stress monkey like me? Are you a jargon-loving, Planetarian-playing techie? Are you the arty, expressive graphic designer? I want to know, damn it!
6 Responses to “Web Design Roles”
At work I suppose I mainly have the roles of Webmaster, Website Architect, “CSS Engineer”, User Interface/Interaction designer and Web Accessibility Specialist. I’m also involved as a Website Designer and a little as Web Typographer, and to some extent Web Usability Specialist and SEO Specialist.
Oh yes, I’ve written a couple of pages as well, so I guess I’m a Web Writer or Copy Write (what’s the difference?) as well. 🙂
Er, yes… Web Writer should have been with Copy Writer really – I’ve updated it.
Tommy, I think most designers will fulfil a little bit of most of these roles. Obviously, some have stronger skills in particular areas. It’s this which I think can be a problem in defining a “job description” for a designer.
People hire freelancers or agencies and just let them do what they do, so long as what they do sounds reasonable. I’m quite interested in finding out to what extent people who hire designers know what they are getting. They are probably expecting the “full service”, but I wonder how often clients get that!
This is a subject I ponder quite often… usually when seeking a job. After all, when a recruiter asks what you do, which hat are you supposed to wear when they are looking to fill a specific position? Also, you’re not guaranteed that your definition of Web Developer is the same as the person on the other side of the desk. Thus, we are kinda left with an identity crisis due to the nature of the business of the Internet.
I’ve searched to try to find the right combination of buzzwords and skills that is wanted, but it just seems to elude me every time. I just end up stumbling on the right set at the right time that gets me that job.
Another factor is that there is such a diversity of development tools (language, IDE, graphics manipulation) that you have to become a master of all the popular ones in order to match more of the jobs. Most jobs though don’t lend themselves to a jack-of-all-trades as much as they want someone who does ”.NET with Photoshop” or “PHP and MySQL”. And since most companies rarely “diversify” their own choice of tools, you walk out of a job with a slim skillset that may not fit most other jobs.
Yeah, see.. you got me on my soapbox.. but I know exactly where you’re coming from.
LOL, thanks for your comment, Charles.
What you said supports my thoughts on Web Design projects in general. I’m all too aware that Web Design now requires a broad skillset, one which cannot be fulfilled by one person. Being self-employed, this is one of the reasons that collaborations are high on my agenda at the moment!
While job-hunting last year, I certainly found that requirements were broader than my skillsets, and there seemed limited demand for Web Accessibility advocates! However, I guess the main problem was really that most vacancies required commercial experience within the industry, something I didn’t have at the time.
Editor! Above all else, I am an editor. My skills range from (rusty) unix system programming to graphic design, but if I cannot edit properly, I am nothing. – Bekah
Eeek! Editor isn’t in my list! But then, I did say it probably wasn’t an exhaustive list. I guess it would really come under “Web Writer”.
It’s an interesting one actually, because no matter what we think we specialise in and do best, we’ll often find ourselves in a situation where we are writing some form of content and not just putting tags around what we’re given. This is even more true for us self-employed designers who don’t necessarily have a dedicated editor for content, but rely on clients to be able to give us the content they want.