Where Have the Real Designers Gone?

[Update 2013-01-05: I should clarify the following is a general rant, and should add: there is a problem in business of simply speaking the language of the ignorant, not attempting to increase knowledge but simply pander to little prejudices or inklings formed from hype about what should be sought in that unknowing state. Such pandering is perhaps necessary for services, however, when they aren't going to learn. I have to deal with people who often cause most of their own problems every day, yet scream at you! Precisely for the same set of circumstances and ills in humanity. 

People end up presenting themselves as something they are not, both for providing what ends-up being honest services and also for pretense to just make money off someone who doesn't know better, and I used the adds by sashajuliard on Craigslist as a general example of the phenomena. Sashajuliard left a comment (received in email) in reply, that I've elevated to occupy a post so he has his say.]

Meander through listings on Craigslist for 'web design', and you will stumble upon one bumbler after another whose real skillset is pretentiousness to knowing what he is doing while really exhorbitantly pricing services to drop Wordpress onto a cheap or free hosting service somewhere with a pre-made theme. e.g. if you look at http://sashajuliard.com/.

The last few days I have contacted several, and in each requested they send examples of work with a description of their abilities and background in HTML, CSS, and JS, and only then if they are familiar with Wordpress and, more importantly, with more--such as drupal; I have also asked that they specify if they are capable of modifying themes of such frameworks, and whether capable of integrating well with Google Apps and Docs' spreadsheets.

No answers.

I must say immediately however, the Sashajuliard site is not one I even tried to contact because  when I looked under the hood and then did some digging, I found him simply using the template "konzept", found here http://themeforest.net/item/konzept-fullscreen-portfolio-wordpress-theme/2383907. (The problem with someone just accustomed to themeing, is their likely inability to deal with any security problems or bugs.)

It's one thing for someone to become an expert, say, in Wordpress; another to present oneself as a designer without even being able to modify a template, but only use those available: those making the templates are real designers, those incapable are fakes. It is perfectly upright, on the other hand, to say openly, "I just install existing technology and equipment I deem the best off-the-shelf solutions for clients lacking the skill and experience in making such determinations on their own" however: it is perfectly ethical business.

Lesson re-learned as always, as over-and-over: anyone presenting themselves as a free-spirit I-do-this-because-I-have-to-move type, is likely not doing anything like a very technical discipline. That takes significant dedication. Let the photographers pretend to be nothing more, and may marketers stop pretending to be technical shops.

Good Idea, Bad Idea...with Chase Bank.

I really should publish these things more. Somehow, I am a magnet for finding (and suffering becaues of) things done wrong, hidden flaws in them breaking, or discovering how inflexible the design of some software: whether it is Samsung, Intuit, Microsoft (well, years ago), or...JPMorgan Chase Bank. I would bet I could turn it into a content manager/strategist position, especially given I usually find not just the major things others suffer, but stuff on the fringes. : )

Today's significant case (so far) will be written in the form of a letter:

Dear Chase, 

Online Business Banking...Good idea. Putting "cancel" by "Show Details" within Payments to Vendors and Distributors,

is a hilariously oversight with potentially disastrous (at least for a user) consequences. (Especially if like everyone else, they're conditioned to use enter to dismiss annoying pop-up modal permission dialog windows--what a mouthful).Not the account holder btw: just a family member who happened to ask for a screenshot!

Criticizing for constructive purpose,

Author.

(Note when "Chrome" is used in the post below, the Web Browser and not OS by Google is meant.)

For years of Firefox use, consuming the web as I see fit rather than as publishers dictate, I did not know that certain fundamental issues of etiquette online are still routinely violated.

I made this discovery while using Google Chrome, because of Android; I received a Galaxy Player 5.0 for Christmas and so Chrome became a regular tool I used. The browser by Google currently does not implement enough hooks and features for programmers of add-ons, plug-ins, and extensions to implement the likes of NoScript, or Adblock Plus, to quite the same extent as is possible with Firefox.

Chrome sits on the ten+ year-old desktop at home, but was used rarely. I quickly noticed while browsing with the mobile version that pop-ups are still prevalent, whether as new windows initiated as Javascript or, more cutting-edge, the nag-ware "installed"-per-instance using HTML5. Then I found the same with the desktop version. Thankfully, though far more limited, there is now a desktop version of Adblock for Chrome, though even as I began writing I was loading multiple tabs therein, and an advertisement with video and audio started playing.

I find it troubling that so-called "professional" sites and leaner and smaller ones both alike use such irritants. As one hunting for employment, job sites that operate as bait-and-switch operations (come for a job, be inundated by education and training offers) are reliable culprits, yet so are certain mainstream publications: one can expect to run into pop-ups, flyovers, and generally elements that hover above the main content.

Have the gurus in business sold the idea, similar to the sale of metrics for internal evaluation (and to dupe investors that transactionless activities can be reliably quantified) that the online equivalent to walking into a Hindu home with muddy shoes and trampling everywhere is a good idea? (Indian Etiquette.) Perhaps it is more like putting a muddy shoe into a Muslim's face (Islam and sole of shoe), because the messages tend to consist of something one doesn't want to touch ("unclean"), and it blocks one's view.

Though not as frequent, I am regularly encountering automatic playback of audio and video as well. Perhaps the marketing geniuses think this is a good idea, to convert a medium largely centered on text¹ to something more television-esque, but like the pop-ups, it is an intrusion. Plenty of us found it bad enough when Youtube decided to auto-play content (for which there are many additions and scripts for Firefox to rectify), and that's a site built around publishing and access of (or, "sharing") video.

So I've been struck that as I navigate to some page to read this or that, I am suddenly assaulted with dynamic media I did not request. I understand that sites have bills to pay, but there is a reason the most successful online advertiser, Google, has largely been in the business of text ads, and that folks like me often choose not to block their advertisements: they aren't a shock, offense, or "Jack Russel [...] Terrier".

--
¹ cp. "Literature is everything, and thus everything must be employed in its support." from http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/05/ideas-bank/literature-needs-much-more-than-ebooks retrieved 2012-05-03 17:01MST