Are You a Web Designer or a Web Decorator?
Published on August 24, 2007 (⻠February 5, 2024), filed under Development and Design (RSS feed for all categories).
This and many other posts are also available as a pretty, well-behaved ebook: On Web Development.
This has bothered me for a long time. The topic popped up when I thought about art and design, and it had to be covered when Roger asked whether we were designers or developers: Our industry is creative in coming up with new and esoteric job titles but an obvious one is missingâthe âweb decorator.â
âWeb decoratorâ is not such a weird job title actually, itâs rather the canonical title for an apocryphal job, assuming that there are more crucial things to do than decorating. From my experience, it should be the job title for many web designers, even for some developers when theyâre doing design stuff or stuffing code.
How to Tell Whether You Are a Web Designerâor Not
Here a two things that make sure youâre not just a decorator:
Your Designs Work
Form follows function. You care about usability and you know about usability testing.
For You, Design Is Not a Matter of Taste
You know the reasons why you cannot use certain color combinations even if you âlikeâ them, for exampleâclassicâred and green while not using any other cues to deliver the message. You know that there are people who cannot read black text on âbright-blackâ background. You know that thick borders can distract and cause noise, as elements interact. You are creative and intuitive, but you also know what youâre doing. You know that, and you can defend your design decisions.
Figures
I couldnât resist to illustrate the current situation in our industry regarding web designers and web developersâa rough, intentionally flawed feature by a man who himself added the title âweb decoratorâ to his first job.
Figure: People doing web design, people doing web development, people doing both.
Figure: The truth.
Wonder why so many web developers are affected? Well, letâs rather wonder why so many developers manage to decorate code.
I know I simplified and exaggerated, as I like to do at times. But the point is, most of the sites out there do not carry the handwriting of a professional designer or developer. That doesnât target personal sites covering topics other than web design and development, though, and in other cases, indeed, an infamous saying applies (courtesy Ralph Caplan) I donât know anymore why I added this:
A camel is a horse designed by a committee.
Final Words
Take this with a grain of salt. Our industry is still young, and people cannot start as experienced design and development professionals. It is our responsibility to share our experience with them and to lead them. Also, decoration certainly has a place, including an âemotional componentâ that requires skills, too. Good practitioners could after all be called âprofessional web decoratorsââwithout a bad aftertaste.
About Me
Iâm Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and Iâm a frontend engineering leader and tech author/publisher. Iâve worked as a technical lead for companies like Google and as an engineering manager for companies like Miro, Iâm a contributor to several web standards, and I write and review books for OâReilly and Frontend Dogma.
I love trying things, not only in web development (and engineering management), but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (Be critical, interpret charitably, and give feedback.)
Comments (Closed)
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On August 24, 2007, 17:03 CEST, Sean Fraser said:
After reading this, I say most every Designer or Developer who works in an agency is a Web Decorator. What would you name a website designed by committee? where Creative Director, Creative Designers, Front-end and Back-end Developers, Maketing and Sales and Client are all allowed to make changes?
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On August 26, 2007, 19:49 CEST, Jens Oliver Meiert said:
Well, that would certainly still be a website, probably not designed but decorated. We observe exactly that, donât we?
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On August 28, 2007, 14:30 CEST, NathanaelB said:
Sean, I just invented a new role by misreading your comment; âBack-seat designerâ - so appropriate for some people donât you think? đ
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On August 28, 2007, 20:07 CEST, Vlada Milanovic said:
Good point, Jens.
and theres a lot of websites, that are visually very appealing, but rather decorated, than designed. -
On August 29, 2007, 1:44 CEST, Steven Turner said:
I would consider a web designer to be someone who solves a problem using websites. A web decorator would probably be more of an artist, someone that creates something that looks nice but doesnât solve the given task, i.e selling promoting etc. I view developers as coders. People who build websites are probably a combination of all three.
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On August 29, 2007, 3:07 CEST, Geoff said:
âA camel is a horse designed by a committee.â
Itâs a pretty stupid quote really. Camels are superbly adapted to the desert and and stronger than horses, faster over long distances and have much greater endurance.
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On August 29, 2007, 3:07 CEST, KatB said:
And yet, we still miss an all-encompassing name for web developers, web designers and web decorators.
Are we web builders? Or do we refer to ourselves as web professionals?
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On August 29, 2007, 5:17 CEST, Viking KARWUR said:
Thanks for this articlesâŠ
I think Iâm Web Decorator đ
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On August 29, 2007, 9:04 CEST, Jens Oliver Meiert said:
Thank you, folks. I love the agreement around this issue.
Geoff, well, consider that what you wanted was a horse, not a camel, meaning that itâs not about the characteristics of the outcome if itâs not what was desired.
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On August 29, 2007, 12:37 CEST, Steffen said:
For a colorblind viewer, web designers and web developers look just the same.
Ironically, the first figure reflects what a decorator would produce - according to your first rule of thumb đ -
On August 29, 2007, 12:45 CEST, Jens Oliver Meiert said:
Observant, Steffen! Note âintentionally flawedâ đ
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On August 30, 2007, 5:26 CEST, ray leigh said:
No offence to anyone, but I have yet to see a web site that realy worked to the maximum for the designers client.
Most working under the name of designer/creator/stylist/artist havenât the faintest idea about designing a web site that works.
75% have no idea how to write for demographic .75% are more concerned with SEO and when they get to the top of the SEO list the design doesnât keep the viewer interested long enough for them to act positively to the message.
Pretty pictures and colours DONâT sell.No humour. No idea of business. No strategy. Code crunchers are two a penny. Designers are two a penny. Copywriters few and far between. All of the above very very few. Forget your artistic egoâs and start creating for your clients stuff that works for them!
The Baldchemist
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On August 30, 2007, 19:49 CEST, benjamin kruger said:
Iâm glad you brought up this topic, because Iâve been thinking about it for a while. . .
. . . and Iâd say that every site has a designer and developerâafter all, theyâre all developed (though not necessarily well) and all have a design (though not necessarily an ‘intelligent designâ).
What Iâd hope to be able to call myself one of these days is a web engineer.
After all, we donât call them aeronautical designers, or electronic/electrical designers, software designers.
Iâd say that designer is a derrogatory term. If your work deserves respect, youâre at least a web producer, if not a web engineer
Or, so thatâs what I think.
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On August 31, 2007, 12:16 CEST, Jens Oliver Meiert said:
Ray, right, itâs certainly important to include clients as well, though that may not be an excuse for forgetting about users in any way.
Benjamin, interesting⊠talking about and actually knowing âweb engineersâ would surely add more professionalism, too.
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On November 20, 2007, 7:18 CET, Aelizia said:
Hi,
Its interesting and also informative.You provide a great comparison between, web designer and web decorator.After reading your post, i think i am a web decorator.
Thanks for this nice article. -
On January 28, 2008, 19:16 CET, SeonDesign said:
Well my main field is Web designing , so i would prefer to talk about web designing as i also know very much about web decorating because my girlfriend is a web decorator:)
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On March 12, 2008, 16:48 CET, Jens Oliver Meiert said:
Thanks to Stefan Nitzsche, this post is also available in German.
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On March 24, 2008, 11:44 CET, Vanja said:
I think this article is true. âOur industry is still very young, and people new to it cannot necessarily start as experienced, professional designers or developers. â 100% you right. đ
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On April 7, 2008, 20:40 CEST, Jens Schulze | Webdesigner o. Web Decorator ;) said:
Jens grĂŒĂt Jens đ.
Ich kenn das. Man arbeitet in einem kmu, betreut die Website. Die Anforderungen steigen und der eigendliche Webdesigner motiert zum sogenannten âWeb Decoratorâ đ. Die Anforderungen solcher Mischberufe sehe ich als deutlich höher an. Oftmals treffen 2 Berufsrichtungen zusammen die leicht unterschiedlicher in sich bĂŒrgen. Aber gerade der âguteâ Allrounder hat die Möglichkeit sich besser den Gegebenheiten anzupassen.bg Jens
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On May 22, 2008, 13:17 CEST, Jonas said:
web director. yeah.
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On March 12, 2009, 21:22 CET, Paul Nil said:
Iâm a professional web developer. Its really a great place to learn and follow for career prospect. Keep it upâŠ
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On March 27, 2009, 12:05 CET, Ben said:
âWeb Designer but often Decorator đâ -
Following the interesting article and the thoughts, I feel that many of us are walking on the line. You design when you can and you decorate when you have to. -
On June 5, 2009, 15:30 CEST, Finca said:
wise words. i ll forward it directly to our we decorator đ
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On July 26, 2009, 10:58 CEST, Björn said:
Iâve never thought about this topic but now Iâm wondering how my daily work could be described. I really want to be a web designer. It sounds much cooler than decorater đ But imagine youâve got a lot of work on your desk and there is no time (and therefore money) to do all the usability tests.
Furthermore Iâm curious about how many people calibrate their displays/monitors. IMHO this is the first step in design. But Iâve met a bunch of people not knowing abou it. So do you think this is an essential step?
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On September 29, 2009, 8:18 CEST, Markus said:
Well, my strength lies in desigen to 60%, 30% to create templates & css and 10% for other (like php etc.). In our company we have real css and php freaks, everyone does what he does best. When an php freak design an website > 80% of this âpageâ looks horrible đ
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On November 30, 2009, 12:12 CET, Michael said:
I agree to Markus: You find excellent developers. They create all kind of difficult plug-ins, workflows and database connections within âsecondsâ. But I dislike their user interfaces very much. On the other hand I find very talented designers that have no clue about web UI and application behaviour, but they can really bring live into dead web pages.
Unfortunately it is pretty hard to find people with both skills.
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