Differentiating qualities of great web designers which set them apart

Web Design Wednesday, 01 February, 2017

It’s a highly competitive world and the market demands not only excellence in what you do – your core competency, but it also demands that professionals be good at many other skills related to your profession, in other words, market demands multi-skilled, multi-talented professionals who can multi-task.

Great web designers are not born. Yes, they are made! Natural talent apart, practice, passion, hard work and dedication to the craft are key to mastery, beyond that you also need to move in the right direction with right complementary skill set to become a great web designer.

Here are the differentiating qualities of great web designers which set them apart from the rest. This article will be useful to both web designers and also people who are looking forward to hire web design professionals.

Attention to detail – A great web designer is a great observer and he/she has the ability to see both the smallest details and also the larger picture.

Passion – if you are not passionate about what you do, you become an average professional. A great web designer is someone who is undoubtedly passionate about web designing.

Creativity – whether you are naturally creative or you develop creativity through work experience, either way, if you are a web designer you need to be creative in order to excel in your field. If you are passionate about your work, you can develop creativity for sure.

In-depth Knowledge – knowledge is a key success factor in any profession. A web designer should have in-depth knowledge of web design principles and latest web design trends, programs and techniques including the latest coding techniques. Its crucial for a web design to keep himself updated.

Understanding a client’s industry – understanding the client’s industry, market and target audience is highly important to design a website that exactly meets client’s requirement. It is important that a web designer works with clients and understands their users persona. needs, behaviors, preferences, goals, fears, issues etc. At the end of the day websites are designed for the end users.

Pleasing Design – Look and feel of the website plays a great role in retaining the user on the website and drives him/her to explore and interact with the site and its functionality. A great design soothes the user’s senses and helps him to emotionally connect with the site and also influences decision making to an extent. A great designer knows how to create an awesome-looking design by working out on the right combination of factors such as colors, layout, graphics, style and more.

SEO knowledge – Design plays a significant role in SEO – clean coding, design choices, layout and structure of the website, great design and more factors influence SEO results directly or indirectly. Having basic or decent knowledge of SEO is an added advantage.

Communication skills – Designers end up working with clients for weeks or months, thus maintaining good relation with clients, making them feel good whenever they interact with you is part of the game. Communication skills are essential.

Listening skills – Clients sometimes may be impatient, unreasonable or even demand changes which may be wrong – you should be able to patiently handle stressful situations like these and if the client is wrong, back your argument with data generated through usability testing or sharing relevant case studies or your own experiences in the past might help. At the same time you should be able to listen to clients’ requirements carefully when they are with respect to user goals – they may be in conflict with what you intend to do but you should be able to swallow your ego and consider what’s best for the project over personal preferences.

Problem solver – While working on projects, issues are likely to happen and at times you get stuck, a great web designer approaches issues with a positive frame of mind and resolves issues. Shares ideas and is open to others’ ideas as well.

Trust-worthy – One of the noticeable qualities of a great web designer is honesty and integrity. Trust-worthiness is a great quality that attracts clients. Meeting deadlines is a great way to increase trust-worthiness and good web designers meet deadlines or communicate issues with clients beforehand if a delay is going to happen.

 

A great web designer is a great observer and he/she has the ability to see both the smallest details and also the larger picture.