How to Evaluate Web Design

This is the most techical section of our site, but also perhaps the most important, as the aim is to give you the tools to evaluate the quality of potential web design firms. If you read the following and apply the testing regiment outlined below, you will be able to independently verify claims of quality web design. We take the time and effort to write standards compliant, cross-browser compatible code, which ensures our clients' web sites function as intended on the widest possible spectrum of hardware and software. Many web designers cut corners in code quality, and you'll never know it unless you know how to test it yourself.

Cross Browser Compatibility

You may have heard of the "browser wars," as Microsoft, Netscape, and others fought for web browsing market share. It was a far less interesting and more geeky version of the cola wars of the 1980's. The only important thing to know for someone evaluating web design services is that there are multiple web browsers, and a web site may or may not be compatible with each one.

We write our code to be compatible with 95% of current user's software. This means compatiblity with Internet Explorer versions seven and six, the latest version of Firefox, and the latest version of Safari. Because each browser, and even each version of the same browser, displays a given web page differently, coding for cross-browser compatibility is far more time consuming than coding for only one browser or one family of browsers.

Many web design firms code only for the latest Internet Explorer, currently version seven. It's easy to do so, but if you accept that level of work, that means only 45% of web visitors will see your web page as it is intended. That is grossly insufficient, especially for a business web site.

How To Test

First, know your browser. You're probably using Internet Explorer if you have a PC, or Safari if you have an Apple. Look at the top of the window this page is in, and it should tell you.

Second, install one or more other browsers on your computer. If you're using Internet Explorer, install Firefox or Safari. If you're using a Mac, find a friend with Windows so you can use Internet Explorer. All these browsers are available for download free:

Download Firefox • Update Internet Explorer • Download Safari for Windows

Finally, once you have more than one browser installed, load the same web page in each one, and observe the differences. There will always be differences, but they should be small and should not disrupt the overall appearance of the page. If they do, you know the designer has not bothered to make the site compatible on all current browsers. Steer clear. Other corners are probably cut as well.

Standards Compliance

You have probably run across the acronym HTML in reference to the web. HTML is a programming language that, like all languages, has standards of usage. It is possible to write correct HTML, and sloppy HTML, in just the same way it's possible to write English with correct or incorrect grammar.

Web browsers are more forgiving to poorly coded HTML than your English teacher was to poor grammar, and often poorly coded pages will not look like they have errors on them if loaded in one particular browser. The problem with poor code is twofold. First, it greatly reduces cross-browser compatibility, and second, the web site is not likely to continue to function correctly when new browser versions are released.

Browsers are written to interpret correct code, and to do the best they can with incorrect code. Each one does it's best differently, and each version does as well. A poorly coded page may look acceptable in Internet Explorer version six, but be unusable in version seven. If you choose a web designer who writes incorrect code, you are likely to find that one day you start getting clients complaining about your site not working. They will have upgraded their browsers only to find your site no longer works properly.

How To Test

Fortunately, you don't need to know anything about HTML to check if a designer is implementing it correctly. There are testing tools available, which let you test a page by simply copying its web address and pasting it into a form. For example, you can test the code on this page by clicking the following link:

Test: www.BlackHorseCreative.com

You can check the site of any other designer you are considering by pasting the web address of a page they have created into the address box of the W3C Validator linked above. Simply go to the designers' porfolio, and paste the links into the validator. Nine times out of ten you'll see something like this:

There are cases, such as when embedding Flash animation, and using other scripting techniques, when some invalid code is necessary. However, this should be the exception and not the rule. If you see a page like the current one with nothing but text and images, it should validate, or you know the designer will sacrifice the quality of your page to save time.

User Friendliness

The most important design consideration for any web site is ease of use. People have short attention spans. You have to give them what they are looking for quickly, or they will move on. If your site has a business purpose, that means lost customers and lost revenue.

How To Test

First, look at the menu system on the main page of the web site you are evaluating. Does it allow you to find all the content on the site? Every page on a site should be reachable with one or two clicks, but you will still find sites that bury their information in a deep link structure. No matter how much information you pack into your site, it doesn't help if no one ever finds it.

Second, note how quickly the page loads, and how quick the transitions are between pages or other elements. That 30 second intro video may look nice the first time you visit a web page, but what if you visit it regularly? How irritating is that same video the tenth or hundreth time you visit a site and have to wait for it to load? Businesses thrive on repeat customers, and the last thing you want to do is drive people away from your web presence with bells and whistles that turn into irritations for repeat visitors.

The first time you visit a site, you may take some time to look around and take in the visuals. The tenth time, you're there for a specific reason and you want to find the information quickly.

We love bells and whistles and visual wow factor as much as anyone, but it needs to be done in a clean, efficient way that doesn't disrupt from the overall experience of the web site.

Apples to Apples

With the above skills under your belt, you can now look at web design pricing through the critical lens of quality. Cheaper is only better if you're comparing apples to apples. If you're comparing a truly high quality, standards compliant, cross-browser compatible site to one made with every shortcut in the book, it had better be cheaper, because it's going to cost some money to fix it once you discover you've been had.

If you have read through this page and followed the exercises, you now have the tools you need to test the claims a web designer makes about his or her pages. Everyone claims to write "high quality code". Now you can check and see.