[christopher]

Is web design acceptable to be done as a hobby/sideline?

[sypher]

Yes, as long as your not charging for your work.

[Chris]

Unless you make a website whilst in a company's employment

[Ben Abrams]

sypher, on Aug 5 2006, 12:48 PM, said:

Yes, as long as your not charging for your work.

would that not depend on how good you are?

charging for your work is along the basis of your skill level. yes, o lot of "hobbyist" designers arent that amazing. but it doesnt mean people who ARE good cant charge...

[benbacardi]

hey, theres nothing wrong with doing it as a hobby! if you enjoy it, why not?!

[sypher]

I meant the people out there who do it as a side job. Do websites for business's then offer no support and end up disappearing from the face of the earth because they had no real ties to the job. There was no company etc established so it makes it easy to walk away.

[Ben Abrams]

sypher, on Aug 5 2006, 04:17 PM, said:

I meant the people out there who do it as a side job. Do websites for business's then offer no support and end up disappearing from the face of the earth because they had no real ties to the job. There was no company etc established so it makes it easy to walk away.

then in that respect, freelancers are a bad thing?

you dont *have* to have a company to be good at what you do. and if your good, likely youll be sticking around

[Fabier]

I did website design as a hobby for years before I felt I was good enough to become professional (though, "good enough" is really in the eyes of the beholder ).

If someone paid me to make a website for them while I was a hobbyist, and I created the site for them, and did everything they required of me and paid me to do. When I was done, I would consider the contract closed and completed. So if they couldn't get a hold of me in a few years when they want to make a change, I don't think I would feel too bad about it.

Now its a bit different because I'm running a business and plan to be doing so for quite some time. So then I'll have some more extended customer support. Of course my prices reflect that professional attitude as opposed to what I would have charged when I was doing it for a hobby (which was mostly for free ).

God Bless,
-Dan

[sypher]

What im saying is this. It creates a bad representation and web design does have stigma surrounding it. Due to students creating websites for business's then letting the busuiness's down.

[Ben Abrams]

yes, as they are not very good at it.....i dont see anything wrong in hobby-ists doing paid work as long as it is to a good standard. what should it matter?

[sypher]

Because its the same as cowboy builders Ever see watchdog? If your doing high quality work, and are then contactable afterwords then yes your offering a good service so the business has nothing to fuss about. Its the ones that dont go that way (and there are alot of them) which concern me.

[Ben Abrams]

yes, but freelancers on the internet cant really be compared to dodgy builders.

what about graphics? what support to you want for a graphic? i see where the point is for developers, but once the working application is given, then surly any support is an extra, therefore it doesnt matter...

websites dont come with 18month warentys! lol

[sypher]

i'll give you a real world example that has happened to me.

A freelance web designer comes into my brothers shop about a year ago.
He shows me some of the sites he has done for the local business's, after a few weeks he moves away to france. A year later one of those business's come into my brothers shop needing a web designer, because their website has now gone. As the hosting has ran out and they cant get a hold of the web designer who did it.

[Fabier]

Yeah, that could prove to be a bummer. When I did hobbist website design I would walk my clients through registering for hosting themselves. So when it was about to run out, they were the ones who were notified, not me. That way they were relatively safe from any serious website issues.

I was just a teenager as well. So they didn't care much ne'ways .

God Bless,
-Dan

[Karl Buckland]

I think the problem is simply that the inernet is young and most people don't understand it or what to expect. It isn't like cowboy builders where people *know* they've been swindled. Besides, most people can't tell the difference between a good designer and a bad designer from looking at their handywork. You can with a builder.

Slowly people are becoming comfortable with the net and realising that it is a professional field and expecting professional prices to go with it.

It's natural that you're going to get someone young and, equally inexperienced, who learns some basic HTML and thinks he can setup a web design company. Once his prospective customers can tell the difference between an amateur and a professional, this won't be as much of an issue.

[Ben Abrams]

sypher, on Aug 6 2006, 04:52 AM, said:

i'll give you a real world example that has happened to me.

A freelance web designer comes into my brothers shop about a year ago.
He shows me some of the sites he has done for the local business's, after a few weeks he moves away to france. A year later one of those business's come into my brothers shop needing a web designer, because their website has now gone. As the hosting has ran out and they cant get a hold of the web designer who did it.

sorry, but that isnt the webdesigners fault!

Sirkent, on Aug 6 2006, 10:15 AM, said:

I think the problem is simply that the inernet is young and most people don't understand it or what to expect. It isn't like cowboy builders where people *know* they've been swindled. Besides, most people can't tell the difference between a good designer and a bad designer from looking at their handywork. You can with a builder.

exactly. but dont slate those people who are infact GOOD at their work.

[sypher]

It is the web designers fault for not talking to the company and telling them how it is.

[Fabier]

Not notifying the business of the hosting problem could technically be blamed on the developer. But not keeping a backup copy of the website or giving themselves any sort of access to the site was the businesses fault. People are unreliable and some pre-emptive precautions to protect your purchases is always a good idea.

I make sure that with my clients I give them everything they would ever need should I die tomorrow. This website designer didn't make sure that would happen, but the business owner should have either known that he was unreliable and taken action sooner rather than later, or made sure he was reliable for the long run.

If the person said he was reliable for the long run and then moved to france, then yeah, I suppose that would be the website designers fault for defecting from his promises...

-Dan

This post has been edited by Fabier: 06 August 2006 - 05:27 PM

[James Mitchell]

That makes sense Dan well said.

[sypher]

This is more likely to happen than if it were a business.