37 What Web Designers Think
Your Say: What Web
Designers Think About
Web Design
Web design is a funny field. We spend years perfecting the craft,
technique, and art of design for the public’s consumption. Yet the
most elegant, successful, most effective designs will be the one
that’s never noticed by the user—so well designed, perhaps, that it
disappears seamlessly into the content.
Luckily, like any industry, we love talking about ourselves. Design-
ers can always be relied upon to have opinions about other design-
ers and designs. I asked both our experts and our survey respon-
dents to weigh in on the current goings on of web design to see
where professional opinion was taking hot issues in our field and
what we could learn from it.
Necessary Skills
As I hinted at earlier in the book, the mere definition of what it
means to be a web designer has been a matter of debate over the
years. Are we artists? Usability experts? Technicians? Architects?
Developers? Some mix of them all?
There’s been a lot written about the identity of the web designer.
However, what a lot of the debate comes down to is the specific
skills that distinguish web design professionals in a field that’s
always changing. What skills must you possess to really call your-
self a professional web designer in 2012?
Our experts had a range of answers that included both important
technical skills and design disciplines. Ian Yates emphasizes the
importance of having core competence skills:
