In the past I never really understood why companies seem to always have a bad taste in their mouth about web designers. It’s like they view web designers as they would a tax collector, a door to door salesman, or worse… tech support!

Anyways after winning many new clients b/c they were so frustrated with their current web design firm that they decided to abandon them entirely, I recently have caught a glimpse of why web designers as a group have such a poor reputation.

It all started when I decided to hire a new part time web designer to help me with my overflow of design projects. In addition to completing the designs I needed done, I wanted to find a truly awesome designer who could help me raise the bar here at Net Profit Services. I wanted someone who could produce exceptional design quality while also staying within a reasonable budget.

As you may already know, finding such a quality designer is no easy task.  After hundreds of dollars were spent and month passed by, I came away with 80+ inquiries.  Of those, ~30 were qualified designers and the other 50 were clearly a waste of time.  I then narrowed the candidate list to the top three designers I would consider hiring.

So everything’s good, right? All my work paid off, right? The story goes on to be happily ever after, right? Well, not exactly.

About 10 weeks after posting my available positions, I hired my new designer. He was the all around package, and I felt almost “lucky” to be working with him. However, this story wouldn’t be interesting without some twists, so without further ado, here is my experience in working with my new web designer:

For the purposes of this article, we’ll say my designer’s name was “Ted Dolittle”, or T.D. for short.
Before I turned TD loose on all of my client projects, i thought it best to ‘break him in’ on an internal design, that way if something didn’t work out, it wouldn’t cause project delays or a quality control issue for any client project. So for one of his first projects I asked him to redesign one of my current web sites. I was very excited to send him the site specs, which I sent to him on March 17. Read on for the details of this project which i can only refer to as “the web designer experience”.

March 20: After 3 days of my designer not being able to receive my emails, TD finaly confirmed he received design specs.
(we’re just getting started and already a red flag? I mean really, a web designer who doesn’t have reliable email???)

Mon Mar 27: TD says he has sent me the mockup already. I did not receive it so I instant messaged him:

[09:44] Kevin: i never got email from ya
[09:44] TD: ya its in my sent at home, heading there at lunch will send then
3:00pm: mockup not received

{after lunch I asked him what happened}
[13:29] TD: totally forgot when I was at home. I’ll get [my wife] to go into my mail and send it for me.
not received

March 30:[11:42] TD: yep, I can show you a progress screenshot possibly tonight, if not tonight, tomorrow
3 days overdue: not received

April 3:
[11:39] TD: yea I left for the weekend friday, Will send tongiht,
7 days overdue: not received

April 4: MOCKUP RECEIVED, It was pretty nicely laid out, but did not meet all the design specs. I requested a few revisions to this mockup.
[23:42] Kevin: can we set a date of when I can expect landing page mockup and final hompage mockup?
[23:43] Kevin: you can set the date to what works for you, and then I’ll plan on it.
[23:43] TD: Friday sound good?
[23:44] Kevin: ya so I can plan for you to update me on friday?
[23:44] TD: yep
[23:44] TD: friday, its a date!
Planning to hear from TD on April 7

April 7: TD had a hosting disaster that resulted in no service for his freelance customers. It was an understandable delay that this issue took priority over my internal design. (of course if he had already completed my mockup revisions, there would have been no issue)

April 11:
[16:26] TD: finally sorted out, I will send you some screenshots tonight, ok?
4 days overdue: not received

April 13:
[11:01] Kevin: anything different from last update?
[11:01] TD: yea, ill have to show ya when i get home.
[11:06] TD: whens the [deadline]
[11:06] Kevin: may1
[11:06] TD: oh thats tons of time.
[11:06] TD: takes me no time to code a site.
6 days overdue: not received

April 18: still not received, so again I IM’d him.
[14:29] TD: ill re-send them
11 days overdue: not received

As you might imagine, I’m getting pretty frustrated. Okay I’ll be honest, I had been frustrated since April 15, but I wanted to see if this was just a bit of bad luck, or if maybe he was truly this full of delays and exuses. So we continue…

April 21: by now it’s obvious I’m not getting any attention or respect. However I thought, “maybe I’m being unreasonable in wanting the site right away”. so i decided to try a different approach.
[09:49] Kevin: hi working on scheduling a few things… think you could send that revised mockup within 2 weeks?
[09:49] TD: within 2 weeks? of course.
[09:50] Kevin: ok then. I guess we’ll see if that works.
[09:52] Kevin: you mentioned it only takes an hr or two to code, so then if it can be coded within 2 weeks following that.
[09:55] Kevin: of course if there is a revision that might add 3-4 weeks.
[09:56] Kevin: anyways asking for stuff when you say you’ll send it isn’t working. so I figured I’d propose a schedule to follow.
[09:57] Kevin: i’d have rathered you just tell me…. i haven’t done it so I’m not emailing it.
[09:58] TD: great a schedule is realllllly good.
[09:58] TD: im good with those, really good
14 days overdue: set new schedule to have mockup completed by May 5. This deadline is 1 month from when the first mockup was received.

I might point out that from April 21st to May 5th i received not one phone call, not one email, not one IM: nothing from the designer.

I emailed him on May 3 and May 4 to remind him that May 5 was getting close. No response.

May 5th:Sent two IM’s during the day. no response

Tagged email shows my emails were viewed, designer just chose not to reply to me.After 2 weeks of waiting: revisions not received. Not only that, i could not even generate a response.

Designer has had this project for 6 and a half weeks.I’d been waiting for the mockup updates for 28 days AFTER he said I’ve have them.

The only progress I ever saw on the site is the first and only mockup back on April 4.

So what happened next? On may 9th I finally caught up with him on IM, where he gave me an excuse of why he had not responded to my emails, but no apology or explaination of why he could not give me a revised mockup within a one month period. Pretty shocking.

Now because I’ve been down this road before, I never place all of my eggs in one basket. I actually started three designers all on the same project, knowing that at least one would not work out. In case you’re curious, the project was for the site you’re viewing now, and the design was completed from start to finish by my awesome new designer in 8 days. My other designer is coding a second version of this site which will be posted at www.netprofitdesign.com in about one week.

I of course would have terminated TD’s contract long before now, but I had to gather some material for this article!

I hope you enjoyed this story, and I hope you realize that one of the most important things to consider when hiring a new web designer is whether or not they have a proven track record. If you have not spoken with their existing clients, you might just find yourself adding your web designer to your list of people you’d like to seriously harm.

What I learned: I learned that the stereotype of web designer can be very true, even when you’ve screened dozens and dozens of applicants and you feel you’ve found the creme of the crop. If you’re hiring a web designer, whether it be a small firm or a large company, I *strongly* suggest you talk to some of their clients to get a true picture of their quality and customer service before you decide who to work with.