Like any professional service, website design is one that’s not always easy to judge before you actually sample it. Sure, you can look at someone’s portfolio but you have no way of knowing how much of the design was down to the designer and how much was insisted on by the client. So what should you ask your website designer to stand a better chance of getting a well designed website?

1. Do you do the design work by yourself or with a team?

There’s advantages and disadvantages whichever way this one is answered. But it may give you a clue as to how big the firm you’re working with really is. Sometimes a one-man band can bring better results than a collaborative effort and often this is more down to your personal preference as a client.

2. Will the pages you design validate and work in all browsers?

This is a biggie. There are standards for HTML and CSS that should be adhered to. As Microsoft have gradually made their Internet Explorer browser more compliant with these standards, a lot of sites have been caught out because they were designing their pages to take account of the idiosyncracies of Internet Explorer rather than work on all modern browsers. A good designer can make your pages look near enough identical regardless of the browser or operating system your customers are using. A bad designer will produce a page that goes haywire if it’s not viewed on the precise combination that they designed it in.

3. Will I be able to change the pages myself if I need to?

This may well strike dread into your designer’s heart but it shouldn’t! After all, you may want to add an extra service or remove an item you no longer offer. This is probably a two minute job that’s as quick for you to do as it is for you to explain to your web designer. It’s no good if it takes weeks of to-ing and fro-ing to get small changes made to your site. Any blustering could mean that either your potential designer is a control freak or that their code is so messy it would take you a month of Sundays to work your way round it. Some designers can’t even modify their own pages – scary thought, but one I’ve met before.

4. Will the site be installed on my web hosting?

This is another biggie. Too often, your website designer will want to host your site on their servers and hold you to ransom if you want to move or change anything. It may cost you slightly more initially but you’ll have more peace of mind if you can install the site they’ve designed on a website host that you have control over and access to. You can always allow your designer in to that space as well, but you’re in overall control. This is much better than finding out in six or twelve months time that your website designer has skipped town with a stack of unpaid bills and your beautifully designed site has been consigned to the digital garbage.

Author Bio: Find out more about website design and optimisation and check out this Cheltenham based search engine optimisation service.

Category: Internet
Keywords: website design questions,well designed website,website designer