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Should Web Designers Be Regulated?
from the where's-your-web-design-license? dept
One of the reasons that the web caught on was that HTML was so easy that, with barely any training at all, anyone could create a website. Obviously, that has its downsides as well, as many websites are dreadfully designed. As accessibility issues become more important for websites, it has some wondering if web designers should be regulated, where official web designers would need specific certification, and couldn't use the title "Web Designer" without it. While the HTML purists might like such a thing, it seems like a fairly silly way of going around and improving HTML. A better case could be made for just showing people how bad design harms their business or visitors.
Reader Comments
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crazy
it's totally crazy, the major problem of webdesign is not from the designer part but from the internet browser part. Actually a law that forbid the term "web browser" for microsoft internet explorer because it doesn't full support the standard (CSS, PNG ...) would be the best thing to do.
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Re: crazy
It's funny how IE almost encourages crappy code because it's so overly tollerant of it. But Microsoft has it's own version of "standards", now doesn't it. ;p
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This is wrong on sooooo many levels
1. Just because you have some stupid certificate doesn't automatically make you a good web designer. Its sorta like passing a MS cert, even though the thing may say Engineer(MSCE), you know deep down you're not.
2. As stated before, how about we mandate that all browser meet some form of basic adherence to the W3C spec? BTW, just for giggles try using a "q" tag in IE. Even though W3C says it exists it doesn't work. I know I know, use blockquote but still its in the spec.
3. When I first started notepad was what I used. Then someone showed me Frontpage, and all went down the toilet. Reformated files, added tags, etc etc, now I just stick with BlueFish in Linux or Coldfusion 5.0 in Windows. Thank God I paid for that lic.
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Re: This is wrong on sooooo many levels
Monty, more like thank God you paid at all. =) Software is getting so ridiculously expensive, and all this activation crap hurts the honest ones who pay.
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Re: This is wrong on sooooo many levels
Slightly off-topic, but I agree - I won't buy any software that requires activation or web-registration, or even shareware which includes a crippled demo.
So I don't buy the software, can't pirate it, so don't use it. So it's really only the software vendors who suffer as they've lost a user (usually to a free Linux equivalent).
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Totally off. Re: This is wrong on sooooo many leve
Yep, this is just a bad idea, mainly because no two web site designers can agree on what "works" and what doesn't.
There's designers that go crazy over proper coding while their sites underperform, and there's others who's site are awful, ugly, and practically unusable but yet they achieve their goal (sales, mostly). Then there's Flash advocates, usablity advocates, programmers who are a breed unto themselves... it's an incredible divisive field.
And I agree that just because someone has a certificate doesn't mean they're truly qualified to do good work. A good web designer is always learning, testing, and changing.
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