http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Careers/Web-Design A listing of the most recently indexed works about Careers and Web Design in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Careers/Web-Design http://tc.eserver.org/35656.html http://tc.eserver.org/35656.html Not long after I went independent, a friend who works at a well-known global advertising agency asked if I would be interested in helping out on a high-profile Web site redesign project. I was pretty stoked. He suggested I come in to meet his team. After meeting with the lead developer and project manager, I was told they wanted to bring me on. All I had to do was to meet the creative director. “Can I see your portfolio?” I hadn’t brought one. “I can give you the URL,” I said. We weren’t near a computer. His glassy response: “I’m not sure what we have to discuss if I can’t see your work.” http://tc.eserver.org/35428.html http://tc.eserver.org/35428.html Some folks may find it impressive that you know the ins and out of UNIX and how your last open source coding project attracted media attention, but the majority do not. Especially when acronyms start spewing forth with articulated speed. Keep in mind that executives are employed to keep you employed and need to understand your ideas to communicate them to stakeholders and customers. One way to minimize 'tech' talk is to include the following words into each technical statement: We are using [technology/programming language] to enhance [a specific part] of our business. http://tc.eserver.org/35156.html http://tc.eserver.org/35156.html Many people are mistaken by what a freelancer actually is and how they use their time. There are many myths that clients think about freelancers, freelance work, or becoming a freelancer. I have made a short list of freelance myths, and what the reality of the myth actually is. http://tc.eserver.org/35157.html http://tc.eserver.org/35157.html Christmas and the holiday season are often the time of the year where people spend the most amount of money. So if your outgoings overtake your freelance in-comings, then you may need to take a look at re-branding your business for the holiday season. Here is WebdesignDev’s short guide on how freelancers can make a bit of extra money on the side during the holiday season when times are tough on the wallet. http://tc.eserver.org/34992.html http://tc.eserver.org/34992.html This article questions how professional communication genres already well established in print form have been changing as they are transplanted into digital media like the Web. Whereas some technology-oriented genre research has sought how a new medium provides genres with new technological features, this article argues that a more insightful approach would seek how a new medium, together with its users, provides genres with new rhetorical situations. To operationally define rhetorical situations, I adapt Lloyd Bitzer's three situational dimensions of exigence, audience, and constraints. Then, to illustrate how the new rhetorical situations of the Web can influence a genre, I explore the genre of the résumé. Drawing on a survey of 100 Web résumé authors and an analysis of their sites, I show that as each of the three dimensions of the résumé's traditional rhetorical situation has opened itself to greater diversity on the Web, the Web version of the résumé genre has correspondingly reoriented itself. Hence, genres change in response not just to the new medium's technology per se but to the new rhetorical situations that the medium hosts. http://tc.eserver.org/34314.html http://tc.eserver.org/34314.html In portfolio web pages, especially in the field of design, one of the first things that you will notice is an introductory text consisting of a few words about the company or the designer behind the site. This can be extremely useful for readers, as it provides quick and direct information about the designer, or the company behind the site. These introductions are generally highlighted by the use of large text, positioned at the top of the site, and always catch the visitor’s eye. They give a more personal feeling to the site and tend to replace the traditional taglines under a logo for example. In this article, we list 50 examples of excellent web page introductions used in portfolio websites that you can use as inspiration for your own designs. http://tc.eserver.org/34250.html http://tc.eserver.org/34250.html Almost everyone should forget about making money directly from blogging. It's so unlikely that it's a total waste of your time trying. I am actually shocked at how ubiquitous the idea is that blogging is a get-rich-quick scheme. Or even a get-rich-slowly scheme. It's not. Blogging is a great career tool for creating opportunities for yourself. But here are eight reasons you should stop thinking about money from blogging. http://tc.eserver.org/34249.html http://tc.eserver.org/34249.html A job board managed by Web Designer Wall where creative professionals come to find job opportunities. When you post your job here, it will be instantly featured on Web Designer Wall and our network sites where designers will see it. http://tc.eserver.org/34158.html http://tc.eserver.org/34158.html If we, the people who make websites, want the world to know who we are and what we do, it’s up to each of us to stand up and represent. Last year, 30,055 of you did just that, taking time out of your busy day to answer the sometimes detailed and often thought-provoking questions in the second A List Apart Survey. This year’s findings paint a clearer picture of the distinctions between full-time and freelance web professionals: how you work, what you earn, and what you love about the job. Interestingly, too, despite the brutality of a global recession that was already in full swing (like an axe) when we offered the survey, most respondents revealed a surprisingly high level of job security, satisfaction, and confidence in the future. http://tc.eserver.org/33943.html http://tc.eserver.org/33943.html The worsening economy will adversely affect our industry, at least in the short term. However, our skills and products are suited to ride out hard economic times. Marketers can easily measure return on investment for electronic media. Likewise a web address—such as an online shop—provides a wider audience and lower overhead than a street address, and could therefore be a better investment. So how do you ensure your company isn’t a wallflower? Keeping your dance card full is about making a truly positive contribution. Here are seven steps to help get you into the rhythm. http://tc.eserver.org/32658.html http://tc.eserver.org/32658.html At its core, building an online portfolio is much the same as any other design brief—the only difference is that you are your own client. So as with any design brief, it’s best to begin by asking yourself, “who is my target audience?” Let’s look at two types of portfolios. http://tc.eserver.org/32470.html http://tc.eserver.org/32470.html On the about page of this site I used to call myself a “developer/designer/occasional writer”. It’s a bit confusing, and I still find it hard to know what to answer when someone asks me what I do for a living. Am I a Web designer? A Web developer? A Web programmer? All of them? Neither? It really is a difficult question to give a simple answer to. http://tc.eserver.org/32481.html http://tc.eserver.org/32481.html The true nature of Web development is a complicated metric to gage without being in the field for many years, and without reading about and listening to thousands who are in the field with you. It can be a frustrating experience for any one person graduating college and starting their career, or wanting to transition into a separate discipline. I decided to try and change that with some personal reflection. http://tc.eserver.org/32054.html http://tc.eserver.org/32054.html Since a healthy percentage of Reencoded readers deal directly with clents, it’s time we take a closer look at how to deal with them. It’s not uncommon for a client’s wants and a client’s needs to head in completely different directions. Hopefully these tips will help you draw the two back together and provide the client with a product or service that they’re happy with and that suits their requirements. http://tc.eserver.org/30098.html http://tc.eserver.org/30098.html Between April 24th and May 22nd, 2007, A List Apart conducted the first survey of 'people who make websites'; 32,831 web professionals participated. Straightforward survey responses are summarized. Detailed findings, derived by cross-referencing various data, make up the remainder and bulk of this report, and constitute its chief claim to significance. http://tc.eserver.org/28907.html http://tc.eserver.org/28907.html Web design is still a young discipline, and it's generally poorly understood. As the web becomes mainstream, an increasing number of people and organizations want websites--and so more people are involved in commissioning, managing, and designing them. It's not surprising that many of these people aren't familiar with how web design works. Clients, managers, and colleagues often assume that web design is a subset of some other discipline, like advertising, graphic design, or software engineering. This creates a tendency to write it off as a low-value, straightforward process that can be streamlined and automated, like a production line. The result is unhelpful pressure on you, the web designer. You're asked to design faster, using a smaller budget, and without access to key stakeholders--which can make it difficult to maintain your professionalism, leaving everyone unhappy with the final design. The logical conclusion of this perpetual streamlining would be to stop using your judgment altogether, as if you were a piece of off-the-shelf software: a robot. http://tc.eserver.org/28403.html http://tc.eserver.org/28403.html Price your services appropriately in line with your competitors. Never sell yourself short - always make sure your clients appreciate what they're buying. http://tc.eserver.org/28401.html http://tc.eserver.org/28401.html A 10-step guide to setting up a web design or development business. I won't go into all the general stuff about running a business (although some of this info is relevant whatever you do). I'll keep it focused on how you can quickly start doing good work and earning real money. http://tc.eserver.org/28389.html http://tc.eserver.org/28389.html There's a lot more to being a successful web designer than designing good web sites. Your job is actually to satisfy your client. This section provides guidelines from our experience of running web agencies, which we hope will help you be more successful and more fulfilled. http://tc.eserver.org/28278.html http://tc.eserver.org/28278.html When someone asks me what I do for a living it usually leads to blank stares or embarassing pauses. Saying that you are a 'Web developer' does not trigger a visual response with most so they always need to follow up with a series of questions that might give them some clue as to what you really do for a profession. Even after getting some idea about what the job entails they have to know.. "Do you make money at that?". Well here's a bit of history to help you out. http://tc.eserver.org/26408.html http://tc.eserver.org/26408.html On occasion, (and only about 5% of the time) a client will not renew with us. They give us various reasons for this, the most common of which has something to do with 'not the results I was expecting.' http://tc.eserver.org/26229.html http://tc.eserver.org/26229.html Should your blog have a business? Jim Coudal shares insights into the adventure of transitioning from client services to product creation. http://tc.eserver.org/25529.html http://tc.eserver.org/25529.html In the mid-1990s, Makiko Itoh and her partner left New York's cubicle land for a web shop of their own in the suburbs of Zurich. Learn from her tips on running your own web agency. http://tc.eserver.org/25527.html http://tc.eserver.org/25527.html Now that greed, pride, and stupidity have wrecked the web economy, how's a semi-idealistic web developer supposed to make a living? Chris Kaminski hitches a ride down the road to dystopia. http://tc.eserver.org/25526.html http://tc.eserver.org/25526.html You've mastered Photoshop, Flash, CSS, PHP, ASP, XHTML and JavaScript; studied usability, accessibility, and information architecture; and can fake your way through XML. But there's more to running a web business than that. Part Four of a continuing series. http://tc.eserver.org/25482.html http://tc.eserver.org/25482.html Thousands of web design projects, open for bidding by web design professionals. http://tc.eserver.org/25368.html http://tc.eserver.org/25368.html Will cyberspace fulfill our dreams of creating a new work environment where not only women but men can choose to work remotely at home, rocking babies with one hand while pushing pixels with the other? There are no easy answers. http://tc.eserver.org/25218.html http://tc.eserver.org/25218.html Freelance copywriters are a strange group of people when it comes to running their own businesses. http://tc.eserver.org/24691.html http://tc.eserver.org/24691.html In my presentation, I share my experience as a new web master, focusing on how technical communicators are well-suited 10 becoming web masters. I discuss what to prepare for and how things change when you become the webmaster. http://tc.eserver.org/24081.html http://tc.eserver.org/24081.html Cybermarketing is a recent aspect of marketing strategy, which involves establishing company presence in cyberspace, in other words on the World Wide Web, or on the Internet. The instrument used in cybermarketing is the company web site - or the company home page as it was first called. The company web site is, likewise, a new concept; the first, most innovative business enterprises only established their web site presence in the second half of the 1990s. Indeed, business professionals have been slower than academics in adopting the communication potentials incorporated in electronic media on the whole, including the World Wide Web and the Internet. http://tc.eserver.org/23998.html http://tc.eserver.org/23998.html We get a lot of email from students and usability professionals asking how one goes about becoming an interaction designer, and what background one needs to get into the field. What are good interaction design programs? What real-world skills and experience are required? What, exactly, do interaction designers do on a day-to-day basis? http://tc.eserver.org/23349.html http://tc.eserver.org/23349.html For starters, many people working on large Web sites hold more than one of these identities or have held more than one of these roles in their career to date, so it makes little sense to limit one's goals to one of these titles. http://tc.eserver.org/22653.html http://tc.eserver.org/22653.html To live the freelance life is to live a life of uncertainty. Not knowing when or from where your next paycheck is coming requires a certain mind-set that not everyone possesses. Some may argue that with so many companies struggling just to keep their heads above water now that the bang is out of the Big Web Boom, full-time work is no more secure than the freelance lifestyle. But before you unplug that feeding tube once and for all, ask yourself if you really have what it takes. http://tc.eserver.org/22471.html http://tc.eserver.org/22471.html It seemed five years ago that 'information architect' was becoming a popular, fancy name for tech writer. Have all of the information architects of the late '90s morphed into usability specialists with a special emphasis on the Web? Or have they gone back to being 'learning products engineers' and 'technical writers'? http://tc.eserver.org/21829.html http://tc.eserver.org/21829.html Mavericks need not apply. In Web design, you have to collaborate. http://tc.eserver.org/21553.html http://tc.eserver.org/21553.html I recently ran into a fellow STC member, Jennifer Square, in the elevator of a large company where I am contracting. We didn't have much time to catch up, so Jennifer e-mailed me later. Her e-mail signature contained an intriguing new job title: interaction designer. I had heard of interaction design but had never known anyone who actually did the work. I wondered what disciplines it encompassed. Was it just something that all good Web designers did anyway, unconsciously? How did it differ from information architecture? Did I do this in my job without realizing it? Was it something I could list on my résumé? In this column, I will define interaction design by comparing it to information architecture, a related field. http://tc.eserver.org/21554.html http://tc.eserver.org/21554.html Rather than focusing on how the site looks, interaction designers are primarily concerned with how an application or Web site functions. They investigate whether the application or Web site performs the intended task in a predictable manner. Interaction design incorporates a lot of skills from other disciplines, such as technical writing and information architecture. http://tc.eserver.org/21428.html http://tc.eserver.org/21428.html The sky is falling. It has been falling for about a year now, and it feels like it won’t stop falling until every business associated with the Internet is dead, dead, dead.  What is happening now happens with every new explosion of technology. When the sky has finished falling, it will leave behind an industry with far fewer, but much healthier players. And then things will get better than they ever were. http://tc.eserver.org/21208.html http://tc.eserver.org/21208.html So you think you've got the cojones to be a freelancer, eh? Then join Evany as she gives you some pointers on this wild and woolly career move. http://tc.eserver.org/21207.html http://tc.eserver.org/21207.html Looking for a dream job in the Web industry? What the job titles really mean and what skills you need for each position. http://tc.eserver.org/21136.html http://tc.eserver.org/21136.html I was wondering if anyone else is starting to feel ill at ease about the work that we do. I personally do a lot of web development work. I regularly conduct usability testing on people so that web sites, and other technology, fit better with humans. I make it a point to stress that good design work yields higher profits, growth, and strategic advantage for our clients.  While these things are acceptable and fit with our social norms, I feel like we are becoming the defense contractors of the new economy. I remember when folks at General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing were getting heat for being baby killers and the like. Will the masses start revolting against us? http://tc.eserver.org/20250.html http://tc.eserver.org/20250.html Web designers do not live by GIFs alone. In this new series, Kramer explains how to set up your business, prepare for projects, maintain profitability, and grow your firm. It all starts with a solid business plan. http://tc.eserver.org/20242.html http://tc.eserver.org/20242.html A boy, a job, and a dot-com economy. ALA's Nick Finck tells his personal story of hirings and firings on the cusp of the dot-com crisis. http://tc.eserver.org/20241.html http://tc.eserver.org/20241.html It's ugly out there, but how bad is it, really? We asked 40 of our peers to share how they were coping (or not) with the layoffs and business failures currently plaguing our industry. http://tc.eserver.org/20220.html http://tc.eserver.org/20220.html You've mastered Photoshop, Flash, PHP, CSS, XHTML and JavaScript; studied usability, accessibility, and information architecture; and can fake your way through XML. But there’s more to running a web business than that. http://tc.eserver.org/20227.html http://tc.eserver.org/20227.html As businesses struggle to stay in business, many are short–changing vendors or woefully delaying payment. Zeldman laments the difficulties of getting paid. http://tc.eserver.org/19674.html http://tc.eserver.org/19674.html What does it take to get a Web site running on the Internet? When you have a site that is ready for some real-life testing, you are ready to put the site up. Publishing a Web site is a three-step process: getting a domain name, choosing a host, and posting the site. http://tc.eserver.org/19312.html http://tc.eserver.org/19312.html Is your organisation in need of a user champion? It might not be the perfect solution, but as a first step it can have far-reaching consequences. If your organisation already has significant resources assisting with interface development, but tends to make key decisions on the basis of hunches or personal opinions, a single individual with a remit to judge the interface from the users point of view may be beneficial. Of course, any appointment must be more than a gesture. A user champion must be confident of management support and fully involved in the development and design process, at every stage. http://tc.eserver.org/18747.html http://tc.eserver.org/18747.html As an individual with a vested interest in discovering what's really going on in the marketplace (i.e., I'm looking for a job too), I decided to put my considerable free time to good use and do some investigative journalism. What follows is a kind of State of the Union for Internet developers: Is it really that bad out there? What happened to all the work? What skills are companies looking for in the new New Economy? And most importantly, what can you do to get/keep a job in these troublesome times? http://tc.eserver.org/18596.html http://tc.eserver.org/18596.html There's room for speciality design agencies, Web developers and full-service interactive agencies. A former director of media resources and research at Bates Worldwide, New York, Mr. Gugel said he thought it was only natural that an interactive agency offer everything a traditional agency does--but modified for the Web: account management, media planning, strategic planning and research capabilities. http://tc.eserver.org/18537.html http://tc.eserver.org/18537.html Describes a detailed process for estimating the time and costs of online communication projects. http://tc.eserver.org/15033.html http://tc.eserver.org/15033.html If your field is Web development, you've probably realized that it's not enough to know just one or two Web-related technologies. You know Java and XML? Fair enough, but to excel -- and market yourself as a true Web pro -- you've got to know a constellation of Web technologies. This is the Five-Acronym Rule: You've got to know at least five acronyms, and know them inside out, to advance in the field. So if you only know HTML and JavaScript, you're no Web pro. But if you know Java, COM, WAP, LDAP and SQL, you'll have a much easier time moving up. http://tc.eserver.org/14723.html http://tc.eserver.org/14723.html Leonard-Wilkinson suggests how Web designers can cope with the problems of unemployment in a difficult market. http://tc.eserver.org/14791.html http://tc.eserver.org/14791.html Kendus discusses the benefits of online portfolios for job candidates and offers tips on creating them. http://tc.eserver.org/14738.html http://tc.eserver.org/14738.html Leonard-Wilkinson presents several ideas for marketing Web businesses to appropriate audiences. http://tc.eserver.org/13265.html http://tc.eserver.org/13265.html Before you get too deeply into establishing your firm, you will need to surround yourself with business professionals who have seen all this before. Putting time and research into the process of selecting these professionals can lead to trusting business relationships that will last for years. Web design firms can count on needing at least an accountant, an attorney and a bank. Corporations will also need a registered agent if they are incorporating outside the state where the business is conducted. Some portions are repeated between professionals since the processes of selecting them are similar. http://tc.eserver.org/13268.html http://tc.eserver.org/13268.html The hardest part of being a professional web designer is telling people what I do for a living. The range of comments I get runs from dismissal of the web as a fad, to the ever popular, 'My fifth-grade son has his own website.' The main reason that job titles like Web GUI Designer or Web Creative get bandied about in the media and professional circles is that the term web designer carries about as much respect as paper boy in today's society. http://tc.eserver.org/13230.html http://tc.eserver.org/13230.html Why is it that we allow ourselves to be put in a compromising position where the client tells us how to be web designers? Maybe it's because the perception among the wider public is that 'anyone' can make a website. And they're right. Anyone can make a website--but not everyone can make an emotionally engaging interactive experience that will live in the visitor's memory. (Similarly, anyone with access to a photocopier and a stapler can 'make a book,' but good books are scarce.) http://tc.eserver.org/13152.html http://tc.eserver.org/13152.html When asked for my opinion on how to break into the Web world, I usually tell people to volunteer. I was very lucky when beginning my Web career in the early days of the Internet—my Web sites received a lot of good exposure. But when I jumped into self-employment a few years ago, I had to start all over again: I needed to show potential clients what I could do, not what my Web team could do. So I found a poorly designed Web site and offered to redesign it for free (the Oklahoma Indian Times Web site at www.okit.com). OKIT jumped at the offer (to read more about this, see “The Need for Web Site Navigation” in the June 1999 issue of Intercom). A lot of my friends thought I was crazy doing all that work for free. But I needed to build a Web site from scratch so I could give prospective clients an example of my work. Nothing is more convincing than before and after pictures.