Greetings WOW Members and Web Professionals Everywhere.
Earlier last week, I reported on the Jeffrey Zeldman session entitled “respect” where he outlined his understanding of the current status of the Web profession.
“Times have changed for those designing for the Web according to Zedlman and the lack of consistent education resources is the primary cause”
For today’s podcast, I’ll go over my session notes regarding a number of other issues plaguing Web designers according to Zeldman with a few observations of my own.
Today’s “Web designers also suffer because many of those practicing in the field today are Webmasters by default” says Zeldman.
Very true statement, since many of us practicing in the space including yours truly are self taught. This issue has more to do with the newness of the profession and the lack of established career pathways in the past in my opinion. I say in the past because that’s about to change. Stay tuned for more in depth discussion on that topic in future podcast.
Candidly, I don’t think Webmaster by default statement is necessarily a bad thing. That said, it’s true that many of us take on so many responsibilities that are outside our immediate core skill area that it’s bound to take negative effect on our ability to manage them all.
I am not 100 percent sure if that is where Zeldman was going with that observation, but I do know that he strikes a chord when he states that: “Great web design is about the character of the content, not the character of the designer. Good web design is about the character of the content, not the character of the client. It’s about content and it’s about people.”
Zeldman also states that “Web designers suffer from the fact that a lot of the training that is available today is product centric.”
WOW! This is so true! “Lots of great product training out there but we lack emphasis on the important stuff like HTML, Usability or interactive design” according to Zeldman. I couldn’t agree more with that statement. In fact, this has been one of my pet peeves over the years. In fact, a year or so ago, I received a call from a school teacher from upstate NY that was concerned about her Web design class. Turns out she purchased 50k worth of WYSIWYG software only to find out that it wasn’t compatible with her Mac OS9’s. I offered to mentor her to understand HTML within basic notepad, but she never called me back. Sad but true.
Zeldman say’s it best when he suggests that when educators and instructors that say to students “Here’s Flash, and here’s Photoshop. And you’re done. “To me, that’s like going to a business school, and they say, Here’s Excel and here’s Word”.
Zeldman also states that “Web awards that focus on the buzz factor and not the bigger picture have a negative effect on our industry”
Also a pet peeve of mine and with all due respect to the Web design tool manufactures, I’ve been saying this for eleven years. In fact, if you look closely at WOW series of national and international Web design contest for example, the Web Pro Challenge, (see www.webprochallenge.org) and the Extreme Markover, (see www.extrememarkover.org) and our annual Web Design Contest that we conduct in Kansas City every year, (see www.webprofessionals.org/skillsusa) we not only promote Web standards and accessibility but employability skills as well .
Zeldman and a handful of others conducted a sizeable National Web Survey that on the surface suggests:
•Relevancy of degrees with the Web profession
•Poor pay scales for Web designers
•Lack of standardized titles
Survey’s are always tough in my opinion and Zeldman himself makes it a point to say that the “data itself may have been skewed” with the way that questions we’re asked. That said, there is no question that we’re still an immature profession and we suffer from a variety of ailments and growing pains.
We need to organize as a profession and develop strategies with qualitative and quantified data in order to improve upon this situation.
All of that said, I’d like to add a WOW perspective to the discussion and why I think that despite educations shortfalls, the cup is half full:
•The Web industry is very young and immature
•Education operates by committee and this simply takes time
•Today, there are hundreds of high schools and community colleges have formalized credit programs and degree level programs. Many WOW member colleges for example, offer college level associates degrees that are online, instructor led and have local advisory board and endorsement the Departments of Education in their respective states.
•Programs such as Web design needs to be vetted by the government.
•Education for those working in the field is only a part of the respect puzzle in my opinion. For example, the Web profession faces equally daunting issues and these are the need to educate the general public and those that we work for so they have a better understanding about what it is we do everyday.
•Teacher training is weak. In the U.S. Teachers in the U.S. for example, teachers receive about eight hours worth of paid training a year and that needs to improve
Stay tuned for part three of the Zeldman keynote list of recommendations to improve upon the situation early next week.