Mirificam Press

Respect! Say It Loud: I Design Websites and I'm Proud of It

March 10th, 2008 in Business & Process

by: Matthew Griffin

I honestly didn't expect to hear anything worth writing about on the first day of SXSWi 2008. Friday is usually a day for getting registered and settling in. There's the now annual "How to Rawk SXSW" panel, and usually a few lighthearted introductory discussions, but things typically don't gear up until the second day. This year, though, I was immediately swept off into web designer heaven as Jeffrey Zeldman and the Happy Cog team presented one of the first SXSWi panels entitled Respect! Say it loud: I design websites and I'm proud of it.

Joined by Google's lead visual designer Doug Bowman, the star-studded panel tackled issues related to working in a vocation that's rarely understood and even more rarely appreciated. Zeldman opened with a joke that encapsulates the essence of the struggle. "I was on a flight one time," he related, "and the man sitting next to me asked what I did for a living. I replied that I design websites. The man looked at me with a sort of awe... Yeah, I loved 1998." In many ways the web has been demystified for the general population. Unfortunately, most of the general population knows little more about what we do now than they did in 1998. They just think they know more. Following Jeffrey's lead, the panelists went on to discuss a series of questions related to this issue.

First, they were asked how they manage communication within a company—from coworker to coworker. They all agreed that creating a sense of ownership of a project in coworkers is key. Jeffrey ended this leg of the discussion by adding that "It's difficult to respect what you don't understand". Taking the time to involve coworkers in your process will pay off in the end as they learn to respect your work.

Reputation management was the next topic of discussion and I think Liz Danzico had the most perceptive comments in this section. She explained that building a reputation in web design is still somewhat of a new frontier because there is no concrete metric by which our ability can be measured—there is no BA in web design. All we have is our portfolio, word-of-mouth, and various web design awards. Jason Santa Maria seemed to believe that web design awards are of little or no value in attracting clients who respect your work. He favors word-of-mouth and portfolio presentation. My personal experience definitely confirms his position.

A brief discussion of website content followed in which Erin Kissane of Happy Cog vented some of the frustrations of waiting for clients to send overdue copy. I'm sure everyone can relate. Jason Santa Maria and Jeffrey Zeldman finished the panel out by discussing the issue of client changes resulting in Frankenstein web design. Jason related some of his personal experiences in dealing with Frankenstein design, eventually explaining that the best weapon to fight the monster is establishing yourself as the expert. Clients and bosses or more likely to leave your beautiful design and HTML in tact if they are convinced that you know best.

Thanks, Jeffrey, and everyone else on the panel. It's intriguing to see web design rock stars sit around and discuss issues we all face. You really set the tone for the festival this year. I see several themes in this discussion that warrant separate Bits O' NewMedia articles in the near future.

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