Fuzzy Orange

I’ve just been chatting to a friend about a certain lincoln “web design” company

You can meet the staff (LOL) here - http://www.lincolnwebenterprises.co.uk/meet-lincoln-web-enterprises.html

This is a stunning example of everything that is wrong with web design/development in the UK
People pay good money to have a site designed and developed from what they think is a well established agency that will give them a quality product

But lets look at this little company, they have 2 economics graduates for a start.
Anyone want to tell me what economics has to do with web design/development??

Then they have a marketing “expert”, which is fair enough if you want to help companies get some awareness out there when their site goes live

Finally a “graphic designer”, though judging by the quality of the 90’s style images on all their sites, I’d say his job title is questionable

A quick browse through their portfolio makes me die a little on the inside

.style6 {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif}
.style9 {color: #FFFF00}
.style10 {font-weight: bold}
.style11 {color: #FFFF00; font-weight: bold; }


Yummy!!! You just cant beat dreamweaver written sh*t like that

http://www.impstrust.co.uk/ seems to have some stuff for search engines (that really wont work you know lads) thats supposed to be hidden, but obviously IE7 or Firefox 3 testing has skipped by them as it doesnt work at all - just puts a nice box full of random text on the top left of the screen

var myScroller1 = new Scroller(0, 0, 146, 70, 1, 2); //(xpos, ypos, width, height, border, padding)
myScroller1.setColors("#ffffff", "#cccccc", "#670000"); //(fgcolor, bgcolor, bdcolor)
myScroller1.setFont("Verdana,Arial,Helvetica", 2);
myScroller1.addItem("John Reames RIP“);
myScroller1.addItem(”Trust Election News“);
myScroller1.addItem(”Supporters’ Trust Report 2007“);
myScroller1.addItem(”The Goal Holiday Club Launch Website“);
myScroller1.addItem(”Away Travel With Redimps Association“);
myScroller1.addItem(”Charity Bike Ride“);
myScroller1.addItem(”Be a winner with the Trust“);
myScroller1.addItem(”Jacko and MacMillan Score!“);
myScroller1.addItem(”Trust to Meet Club Board“);
myScroller1.addItem(”Trust to Support Motion“);
myScroller1.addItem(”Trust Annual General Meeting“);
myScroller1.addItem(”Parliamentary Inquiry“);


I tell you something, all this PHP malarky is a bit over-rated, why have databases for news, or silly RSS feeds or anything like that when you can have a static html file for each news article.. Im starting to see the error of my ways *sigh*

The reason all this has come up and im having a bit of a rant is I’ve just found out one of my ex-employers has decided to use these guys as a partner company when they cant do the work themselves.. Ordinarily this wouldnt bother me except the graphics designer they have is probably one of the best digital designers ive ever met, and the coder is a stupidly talented and under-appreciated lad who’s a bit of a whizz with jquery/php/asp and pretty much anything he turns his hand too

So why outsource some work to a bunch of guys that wouldnt know a good website if it landed on their face and wiggled? How is that valueing your team or helping the image you portray to clients?

There really should be a proper “approved web development company” type system where you can only get registered if you can show browser compliancy, accessibility, SEO and at least a vague understanding of current development practices, to stop companies from giving money to cowboys like this and getting a sh*t site in return