Apr
10
2008
As my business expands to a point where I may need to consider taking on an extra pair of hands to keep up with the workload, I have been thinking a lot about the next generation of web designers and developers and how prepared they are for the real world of web design on completion of their studies.
When I became interested in working in the web industry I wasn’t even 100% sure there was one! I was 16 and remember trailing into town with the family to get some books on this HTML thing that meant I could make a website of my own and that’s where it started, with books. I taught myself, often neglecting my traditional studies and ended up studying multimedia at TAFE after high-school. Continue Reading »
Apr
06
2008
I’m not talking the “Wild West” kind, more the kind that give the web industry a bad name. I have been lucky in the last 6 years in that I haven’t come across any of these so called cowboys and as a result I was beginning to think they were a myth. A project I have recently become involved in, however, has changed my viewpoint entirely. Yes, cowboys in the web industry do exist and they are giving us a very bad name.
Everybody hears the horror stories that people have apparently experienced but until now I had never been so close to any such activity. You know the kind; project misses its deadline, design work isn’t up to scratch, no reporting on deliverables is made, there is no firm plan, money is demanded, team members are sacked, clients are held to ransom with no functioning product, each party blaming the other for the project’s failings - the list goes on.
I don’t know about anybody else but this sort of thing makes my blood boil. Continue Reading »
