Not everyone needs a web designer. Follow this guide and decide whether you need one or can manage on your own.

DO YOU NEED A WEB DESIGNER?

1. Learning web design is an option.

2. Here are some arguments in favor of doing it yourself.

3. Lower costs: You can design a website for free or very low cost, as long as you put in the effort

4. Direct control of the design: There is no communication divide between you and a designer – you understand exactly what you want

5. Gain knowledge to make future changes: Your new learned skills allow you to easily make future changes and edits to your website

6. Learning HTML is easy! Contrary to what some believe, HTML code is very straightforward. Also, browsers are forgiving of incorrect code

7. Even better, WYSIWYG programs are improving: What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) programs allow you to create your website without any coding

8. Many learning opportunities: Free tutorials, forums, learning materials and resources are plentiful on the Internet

9. Here are some arguments against doing it yourself

10. WYSIWYG programs still have limitations: Bad, invalid code affecting accessibility, search engine ranking, and cross-browser compatibility, limited control compared to coding; Some programs have steep learning curves

11. There’s a lot more to good website design than knowing HTML: As a beginner, you don’t know… …what you don’t know

12. 7 factors in web design that are commonly overlooked by beginners

    a. Usability: e.g. Knowing

        * Where page elements, such as navigation links are best placed
        * How to use whitespace
        * Which fonts are easiest to read
        * How to make forms simpler to fill out

    b. Accessibility: Creating code that can be used by disabled visitors e.g.

        * Keyboard shortcuts
        * Alt text for pictures
        * Alternatives to JavaScript Legal requirement for some countries increases potential market Ethically important

    c. Search Engine Optimization: A huge field of study. Many best practices for coding and content writing e.g.

        * Optimized title tags
        * Putting content earliest in the code
        * Using keywords and phrases in your linking text
        * Ever-changing recommendations

    d. Ease of maintenance/Future changes

        * Coding techniques that can hugely ease alterations
        * Use of templates and included codes
        * Logical directory structure
        * Commented code
        * Modular code

    e. Design “sense” Knowing

        * What design appeals to different markets
        * What colors are most effectively combined
        * How best aesthetically to arrange page elements

    f. Quality of graphic elements

        * The overall professional appearance of images is very noticeable, and dependent on
        * Web-optimized images
        * Correct image file type
        * Image resolutions
        * Image cropping and editing
        * Graphic design technique

    g. Page loading speed: Factors affecting download speed, include

        * Image size
        * Page size
        * Layout type (table or Cascading Style Sheets)
        * Number of discrete items on page

13. Making your first website is easy, and anyone can do it. Making your first good website will take a lot of time and learning.

14. You’ve now examined whether you need a web designer.  Hopefully this guide will help you decide to have a web designer or do it on your own.

15. Need Help? Ask the experts at guiding you through website development.

You can also check the reference here [1].

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