Web Designers, how much experience is enough experience?
As a young designer I often cringe when I hear experience only being expressed by years worked. This is a wonderful industry – one of its perks is that a 20-something can bring just as much to the table as a 10 year veteran (which crazy enough can sometimes be a 20-something). If you know what you’re doing, you know experience in this field is truly determined by quantity and quality of work. As a hiring manager myself – I often evaluate a candidates’ experience not by years worked but simply by what they’ve done and how they’ve done it.
Why does experience matter at all? “Experience” is really just a one-word’er that gives an employer a sense of expectation – a level or degree of your competence in certain areas of work. In short; they are trying to figure out how you will handle certain situations. Situations such as: determining how fast you can problem solve, create design concepts or even how well you deal with time-pressured stress and unrealistic expectations with clients to match. The quick and dirty theory being the more time you’ve been working, the more projects you’ve worked on and the more clients you’ve dealt with – the more apt you would be at handling the unexpected and unrealistic (because you’ve most likely encountered something similar in the past). However, does a resume that spans a decade always speak to this more than a resume just three years out of college?
As a 20-something designer; I’ve designed, redesigned, architected, created, built, implemented, art directed, tested and even conceived of more websites in the past 24 months than most designers have in the their entire careers. To ignore a resume simply based on time or to even create a job description with an experience minimum associated with years worked is to ignore and alienate some of the top talent in the industry. It is the young and ambitious that are going to excel the fastest and have the greatest amount of contribution in the most compressed amount of time – don’t ignore it, seek it out, take advantage of it, and strive!
So, the question remains: how much experience is enough experience? Obviously the answer depends on the job description and requirements. The answer is not however, simply based on years worked. It all simply comes back to quantity and quality of work. It is true that the more projects you’ve worked on the greater the chance that you will not only be able to handle but even foresee challenges and opportunities in your work. Quantity doesn’t matter without quality and quality isn’t impressive until there is quantity – but with quality and quantity that is all that will matter!
- September 7th, 2006
- 41comments
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I agree, especially in web design experience has much less weight than most other industries. It is how-ever still valid in my opinion.
While two people doing web design for drasticly different lengths of time could have created and worked on the same amount of projects, there still is a link between how much work you have done and the quality of your work.
Every design I do I feel is better than the one I did previously, and everytime I go to code a css/xhtml template I strive to push the bar a little.
If you are no better a designer (in terms of code / visuals) than you were a year ago, I really think you need to push yourself further.
Ross –> excellent comment; I completely agree! Wanting to excel is crucial to ones development and enhancement of skill sets.
The reason years experience isn’t as important as quantity and quality of work is because many designers will let them selves get stuck in a company for five or ten years working on one website within the confines of one brand. They learn to only work within the limitations of that company – working only with their programming language and only being able to problem solve their specific types of issues; ultimately making oneself less diverse and less attractive.
“As a 20-something designer; I’ve designed, redesigned, architected, created, built, implemented, art directed, tested and even conceived of more websites in the past 24 months than most designers have in the their entire careers.”
Examples? Experience is important, more important than a degree, but what’s way more important than either is quality.
Phil, perhaps you missed the primary point — Quantity and QUALITY are what matter; you must have both. Designing and developing 10 websites in a month means nothing if they look like sh!t, but if they are all of amazing quality then you’ve done something we should all be highly impressed by — something worth taking note of.
I think it not just about the quality of work, but dealing with customer expectations and difficulty. Someone older might have higher maturity and sensitivity.
Your question is a lot like the “I have the experience but not the degree” scenario. Companies would much rather hire someone with a Bachelors Degree vs someone with equivalent (or more) experience. I got lucky at work. They counted my self employment and Associates degree towards the required minimum.
You are right, it is not just about quality of work — it is also about quantity of work. My point being that quantity in the right environment doesn’t have to take a decade to acquire.
The degree or no degree debate is for another time — I see a lot of value in an academic background, but I’ll save my opinions for another post.
I really believe employers should be focusing on finding talent with the experience to match — it is ignorant to determine that 5+ years working equates to something. Most times that might be the case, but to pass by a resume just because it is only a few years out of college is to potentially pass by a great candidate more qualified than another with a longer work history spanning a greater amount of time.
I’ve actually found that experience is much more important than education, especially in a more non-technical area such as communication design.
50% of the work I do as a designer and as a php developer is client communication. You can get the technical skills anywhere, but soft skills such as communication and time/people management can only be learned through interacting with people in the field.
In the end, an education is just a piece of paper. It’s the quality of your work, combined with real-world experience, that defines a good designer.
8 years (since freshman year of high school), and i would still only consider myself a novice. its more important that designers/developers stay on top of new technology and usability issues, and not based on the years of knowing how to do it. it was not until a client asked how long i had been working in this field did i really think about how “old” i’ve gotten. i still get the excitement of designing, building, and programming that i did years ago.
as you said, quality matters. being smart, allways trying to learn, and working hard are more important than years.
I agree with Martin, you do need both quality and quantity in your resume, but there is a relationship between the two.
I’m reminded of an experiment that was performed in a college art program. Students were divided into 2 groups. Each had to, as a group, produce a high-quality sculpture to submit for a grade. Group A was allowed to produce one sculpture and it would be graded on the quality produced. Group B was allowed to produce many sculpures and the group would be graded on the quantity produced regardless of quality. As it turned out, Group B produced many sculptures and there were several that were far better quality than Group A’s single sculpture.
What does this seem to suggest? We get better at our work by actually doing more of it, learning and refining it. Sure, theoretically, we could just keep making the same mistakes over and over, but I think most professionals improve with every project. Again, the amount of time it takes is irrelevant.
Is it safe to assume most of the people in support of my statement are young or started their careers rapidly while young? I appreciate the feedback — wondering how the 10 year veterans of the world feel about statements such as these.
This article may be of interest. it discusses the difference between conceptual creativity vs experimental creativity.
What Kind of Genius Are You?
As a hiring manager, I have to question your experience with Web design. Of course someone with a year can build out nice pages however there are a million little things that can come up that an experienced designer can handle a lot better. Let me use a dentist analogy. Sure, you can have a brilliant dentist with a year experience fix a cavity or whiten your teeth. Would you want that same dentist dealing with some major issue that required dental surgery? I think not. That is when you want the experienced professional that has dealt with it before or something similar.
Don’t get me wrong, I think there are plenty of Web designers with limited experience that can build a brochure site or some other basic site. However, when dealing with a site with tons of hits, complex dynamic functionality, or financial information, an inexperienced designer does not cut it. There is more than general design there, more than aesthetics. Interaction design, information architecture and usability are key factors that can come into play that are not things someone can pick up with a “for Dummies” book. Hell, even understanding best practices, wire-framing, site flows and other fun stuff like that are not something an inexperienced is likely to know. Can you say, “designing for scalability?” There are a lot of designers that can’t.
After around a decade of working with the Web in many capacities I have learned a hell of a lot and continue to learn. If you need a professional, hire one. If you need a graphic designer, that is different than Web designer. I work with lot of people with less experience than myself and some are really good. When push comes to shove though, I am better :)
Virtualsalvation –> I feel you like most are missing the key ingredients here, it isn’t just about quantity or quality it is about BOTH quantity and quality. Quality is vague on purpose — what determines quality? Not just simply a pretty interface, but all of the attributes that demand a quality website (whether static, dynamic or a combination of the two). What determines quantity; two or one hundred?
It shouldn’t matter how many years you’ve been in the field – what should matter is the type of experience you’ve had. One of my underlining points is that this specific industry is unique in the fact that a 2 year veteran can obtain the same experiences as the typical ten year veteran – obviously huge exceptions to both of these.
Show me the work, the examples, the makeovers. I don’t care about your degrees or much else. Web design is similar to conventional programming. Degrees do not necessarily equate to much. Years of experience don’t mean much. Show me your last 5 projects. I have been producing software for 25 years by hiring programmers to assist me and or doing it myself; websites for ten years. If you haven’t upgraded your skill set for website development in the past two to three years, get out of the business or get current. And yes, I have hired sixteen year olds on two occasions and was delighted with their work. I have also fired several people with degrees. And worked with an MIT grad who did some great work - because he took the time to do the research and stay at the front.
Sorry… I am just tired of cleaning up the crap from amateurs who take money, do a poor job, and then dump the client.
:D
And I appreciate that some of you are new. I was new too. Still am in a lot of ways, always will be, it’s the fun of the computer field, always new stuff that’s fun and better. It’s why I am still here.
What you are missing the point of is how many many shops and general businesses exist without care of who you are or what you do. They are looking for cogs and they want to put them to work, calculating off these neat little forms and skill guestimates based on degree and tenure all in an effort to continue enabling their own existance by way of stepping on yours. Welcome to the world, it’s really bizarre, screwed up, and generally self-serving/unfair.
Now if you really are a 5%’r then you need to find a shop that doesn’t just want a form and an application but they want a team member who gets what they do and can swim in their environment. Somehow though I thought you’d already know this if you’ve tracked any of what the entire Web 2 groove has been showing. Time and time again when fresh young companies that are fired up are asked about hiring they talk about the skills of the craft equal to looking for like minds. My partner and I joke about one guys last hiring question, ‘Do you fifa?’, meaning if you didn’t, you couldn’t hang, and if you couldn’t hang, you couldn’t enmesh properly and would cause problems. So what I’d say is you’re looking down the wrong holes and you need to find the right ones. Your portfolio/reel/skill sets are of dire importance. If you are the cats meow then you can prove it, and it is definitely measurable, the you prove your social qualities and if the fit is there its there. If it’s not keep on moving, try and not get discouraged and always find out what the client or employer wasn’t keen on. You’re human, we adapt!
If you settle for less you will be ground into mush at most establishments. It’s not always because of a serious pathological ceo/management (but often is), it can be because of simple language and process barriers which mount communication difficulties, egos, and power struggles for too much control, or too little, will cause a never ending set of retarded deadlines on unrealistic specs (or none), with the sales teams inventing new ways of paining you.
Be wary in the tech field. Abuse and inequality run rampant all over the place, we just (hopefully) get paid better most of the time. If you’re aware of how to nav these waters earlier you’ll be a lot better prepared in the eventualities. I may or may not be on target, but I sure as hell someone woke my ass up a decade ago before I chunked most of it down a disposal of ground hog days.
Also have a hint more hubris. The younger you are the more you feel you know but the older you get the more you realize you had no clue of and I don’t think that ever stops. I realize you are in a bind now hitting this wall of experience, but in reality your just hitting bad jobs. In a decade you’ll look back on how much you’ve grown in wisdom and that is really applicable to problem solving which has direct impacts on how well you can vison-engineer and generate the solutions to get there. Otherwise become a great asskicker in this world that needs them!
-a
Damn my typist is off. Tween the best you can, I need to sleep! hah.
Experience plus talent plus knowledge… all demonstrated by what a person has produced lately. Your points are well said.
I think I’m pretty good at what I do, and I’m 16. I think experience is relative. Some people learn and absorb faster; others need the extra 20 years to develop a base. As far as the web goes, it’s always changing. Some people are back in the years of HTML 3 and no CSS, and they’re still web “designers”, but they don’t necessarily have as much experience.
Now as far as the semantics, the CSS, the accessibility and usability…while they’re fundamental parts of being a designer, those are just ways to alter what code you’ve already written to create something new that seems to fit those definitions. They’re vital, yes, but to whom? A small website owner? Not at all - they are for the larger sites, that appear to have more experience, but that’s necessary experience.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s the way it always will be.
Just like the movie… show us the websites. That is what counts.
Let’s see your stuff. www dot _____________— dot com
Fill in the blank for us. And if you don’t have your website to show off your stuff. Then produce one.
But I am sure you do. Shoot me an email. I have more website work than I can handle.
But… are you are hiring manager or a website developer?
Show us your stuff, we’ll give you some feedback. And I will even be tactful and positive.
being in the business i have made an observation. there are web designers, webdevelopers all with different ranges of skill in their respective fields. but the usability of the product of their work is a different field of expertise that both groups can/should master. this is what makes the real difference in the quality of the result.
Have they really mastered how to critique a design, come up with solutions on feedback from clients, user tests etc… this can take years because of the different situations arise.
I see people who have varying skills in usability and some just know how to think and they come up with something that is ‘out of the box’. having someone on your team like that is invaluable.
some people just have this ‘X’ factor but i believe that we can all acquire this skill.
However one the main reason most webdesigners and webdevelopers aren’t using their skills properly is because many still dont understand user-centered product development & usability patterns.
Good points.
As someone who’s been doing it for 10 years, I’ve been exposed to good designers and bad. And the good ones usually started out good, probably like you.
The thing is, if you’re good and have 3 years of experience, you may be better than people who are mediocre and have 10 years, but you have to realize that the ones who started out good have continued to learn throughout their career, and good +10 years of experience trumps good +3 years every time. If you don’t believe it, ask yourself whether or not you plan to learn anything other than pure “modern” technique over the next 7 years.
Good comment. Would love to see some of your work. :D
Once you step beyond one page, not using CSS is … well, if you don’t know the difference, I ain’t yo mama and am not going to educate you. But I suggest you go to msdn or somewhere else and take a class or two or… here’s one and there are many others available.
http://webdesign.about.com/c/ec/30.htm?nl=1
Even you were doing just a one pager, using CSS makes it so much easier, tighter, etc.
Do you guys, most of the above commenters, really develop websites for a living?
Some of you sound like those clowns that produce websites that I get paid to rebuild after you’re done making a mess and the client is not happy.
And as always, if my comments don’t apply to you, great. If you are bothered, then perhaps you need to look at your skillset. And if your stuff doesn’t look this good ( http://www.stopdesign.com ), get educated or get out of the business.
Sorry about the “yo mama” statement. I just woke up, the dog ate my website, I have not had my coffee for about 20 years, and I don’t mean to offend anyone with those words. And if I did offend you, sorry. Let me know when you’re perfect. :P
I think everyone has been making really good points. And I believe we have a little bit of a consensus. Years worked, a degree or any other arbitrary element such as these isn’t necessarily important in this industry when you’ve got experience backed by a strong portfolio demonstrating a diverse quantity and quality of work.
Martin, I like your take on this. One thing I’ve found is that some of those “10 year veterans” are pretty set in their ways and some of them can’t let go of old design techniques (like table-based design). You may be a good candidate for my Design Contest that’s going on right now!
Natcon67. I appreciate the comment and completely agree with you. Another thing to watch out for is in-house designers that stay with a company for several years — they become very stuck in their ways.
You contest looks “nice” — if i get “bored” as you stated, I will probably submit something. Best of luck!!!
I guess it also depends where you come from. here in the Netherlands the new media and programming studies are out dated and run by teachers who can’t make it in the business world. so yeah degrees mean nothing here to me.
and Arr Johnson, i’d live to see YOUR work…you sound like you think you are way up there.
Thank you Braden- I guess. LOL Over the decades, my clients have included some Fortune 100 companies including that computer company with 3 initials. No big deal. I am just a very humble producer of websites, always looking for ways to make them better. I spend several hours each week learning new stuff; that is the fun of it all. I love it.
Much of what is taught in the USA is the same Braden-outdated, incompetent teachers, etc. There are notable exceptions but that is so often the case. But you can learn all you need to online. It’s all there. Most of it free. Go look at DB’s stuff. Way cool. http://www.stopdesign.com His site has links that take you good places and you can learn so much from their code and writing. And 37signals.com. Great stuff. imho, the real learning is always in the real world.
I guess I could express these things a little more tactfully but I don’t feel like it at the moment. Tact has never been first nature to me. Perhaps it was all those beatings when I was growing up. LOL
These conversations shouldn’t turn personal. It doesnt matter if we think one anothers portfolios are any good — unless we are the hiring manager at the moment.
What matters is your audience — you always need to design for your audience. If your audience loves your work — you will be sucessful. Remember, your audience could be an HR rep, a small business client, an over-ego’ed creative director or some blue collar small towners.
I’ve seen some amazingly strong portfolios that can’t even get a 30K/year job and I’ve seen some weak portfolios with amazing resumes backed by companies such as Yahoo! and AOL.
Fair enough. I know many “senior designers” that are not as good as less experienced designers. I guess there are just so many things I have learned over the years that I think of it as an ongoing process and one where you gain knowledge with experience. My first four years I was in rapid production mode for smaller sites. I designed hundreds of sites and thousands of pages during that time. The last six years I have been working for larger corporate entities and it has been a completely different exprience and required a completely different skill set. Even working with a team of UI designers or a company with creative department is a different dynamic than working as a contractor or consultant. My point was really more that you SHOULD take experience into consideration, even if it is not the primary thing you are looking for. I probably got a little defensive because I know so many people with 5 or less years experience that think they know it all. Well, the changes in technology over the past 5 years has been incredible and one thing I can say with certainty is the coding skills may be obsolete in another 5 years but the processes and understanding of basic user interaction and design architecture will still be key. Experience does really help in those arenas.
I agree with you — experience (especially years worked) is vital and important. I don’t by any means want to discount that — a 10 year veteran is an extremely vital asset. My primary point is to ensure we don’t ignore or alienate candidates simply because they have less years-worked that another candidate. Years-worked doesn’t equate to an experienced designer necessarily.
Here’s my thought on the whole experience question. You (generic) might not have immense depth of technical knowledge, but you probably (after say 10 years) have breadth of experience, which is also valuable, perhaps even more than depth in certain situations. Why? You’ve got more options to draw upon in solving problems, even if you require some additional research at times. Professionals like this often become consultants because they generally have a better “big picture” view than technical experts. As such they become the “utility” players in the organization, and you’ll see a number of these types in management positions. Every org needs people like this as a complement to technical experts. Versatility, acquired by working on a variety of environments and projects, is an elusive quality that frequently gets overshadowed when focusing upon pure technical ability…
wrycatcher –> I appreciate the comment. Great input — perfeclty put.
Well said. Very well said. Unusual and impressive
Mike, over at Mike-O-Matic has recently posted a good elaboration to my original post. Check out his take on “Hiring by Numbers“
Read this today and it just shows how being “lazy” as a result of trying to be effecient can be a negative when finding solid talent.
Don’t Let Spam Filters Snatch Your Resume
I’ve been in the game for about 7 years now and I’m almost 27 (shudder).
I’ve also recently been looking for a new position. What I’ve found is that I’m always being asked how many years I’ve been doing things by recruitment agents and that applies to the industry in general and each of the programmes I work with. To that end I’ve had the same conversation with each of them. If I say I’ve been using Photoshop for almost 11 years that makes me sound like a Photoshop guru. However, I wouldn’t say I was a guru compared to what Photoshop can do I’m more inclined to think that I only know about half of what it can do making more of a intermediate user.
The same argument applies to the industry in general as people have talked about above BUT, let’s remember the general public’s pre-conceptions. A 50-something marketing director wants a website. He/She comes to you after seeing your work is good. 9/10 times they’ll move on to someone that they think is going to do a better job regardless of portfolio because of age. It’s an old way of thinking but one that’s going to be around for ages to come.
As well as this, even if I had had the portfolio I have now when I was 20 I wouldn’t be as experienced in the industry and have developed the client facing skills and management skills needed to get to where I wanted to be.
So, I think there’s two sides to the coin. Yes, designers can be very good at a young age but at the same time a more experienced designer in years will have a lot more skills to use and promote themselves even if the 20 year old and the older designer had the same portfolio.
I have to confess that it’s very urgent question. Moreover, it’s not only regarding the web design it’s also about other creative professions. It doesn’t matter how long are you dealing with it, the more important is how keen are you on this. The degree plays a role but not the main one.