Designers, developers, project managers. Writers and editors. Information architects and usability specialists. People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?
It’s time we learned the answers to these and other questions about web design. And nobody is better qualified than the readers of A List Apart to provide the answers. Participate in our first annual survey to increase knowledge of web design and boost respect for the profession. Selected participants, chosen by random drawing, will win one free ticket to An Event Apart event held in the continental U.S.; an Apple 30GB video iPod, an Event Apart jump drive, or a funky A List Apart T-shirt.1
Depending on how you answer it, the survey has up to 37 questions, nearly all of them multiple choice. A fluent English speaker should be able to complete the survey in ten minutes or less. Hosted by An Event Apart, the survey will remain open until 22 May, 2007. After we close it, we’ll slice and dice the data and present our findings here.
Think our survey sucks? Do we ask the wrong questions or omit important issues? Discuss the survey to help us make next year’s questions even better. (Note: the software that powers our survey generates id attributes that begin with numbers instead of letters, an XHTML no-no. Because of this behavior of the software, our survey currently does not validate. We’re working to resolve this problem.)
Hat tips: AIGA and The Information Architecture Institute
1 Winners will be selected by random drawing. Free attendance at An Event Apart, valued at U.S. $895, includes the two-day live event, plus breakfasts and luncheons, parties, and swag. Hotel accommodations and travel to and from the event, are not included. The 30GB video iPod (2.5-inch color video display, 4.8 ounces, 2.4 x 4.1 x .43 inches), presently a US $249.00 retail value, will be paid for by Happy Cog, publisher of A List Apart. Happy Cog will ship the iPod directly to the winner if he or she lives in the continental U.S.; otherwise, we will reimburse you for the purchase of a 30GB iPod from an Apple store in your country. International iPod winners will be reimbursed via PayPal; you must have a PayPal account to be reimbursed.
The labels for the checkbox/radio inputs have broken IDs.
E.g. in Question 10, there’s input id=”244-3684″, with label for=”244-“.
Question 24 has a typo in the second answer: $10,000-$19,9999
That’s one too many nines.
On questions 29-32, I would have liked to be able to explain my answers.
Question 34 could have used an answer along the lines of “I did not have the appropriate skills” answer.
One of the things I would have liked the survey to investigate is the social aspects of our profession. Perhaps I can illustrate with some comments:
Living and working on-line means that it is rare that I see my clients face-to-face, let alone any peers. Being mobile and having travelled around my country for the past four years likely doesn’t help.
If I make something really exciting, it’s hard to share that or ask for feedback from anyone who understands the question, let alone what they’re looking at.
I find myself regularly needing to teach the client in their understanding of the underlying technology because they are ill-equipped to ask relevant questions and make informed decisions.
I took a break over Easter and I didn’t check my email for three whole days. It was like I was suffering withdrawal. I suspect it’s a side-effect of being self-employed and responding promptly to a client when they contact me.
While this may sound like a cry for help, it’s not. I wonder how many other like-minded professionals find themselves in the same position.
A final point, likely not under the heading of Social Aspects, is that of professional recognition.
There is a joke that goes something like this: “The difference between a used-car salesman and a web-developer is that the used-car salesman knows when they’re lying.”
I see people claim 20 years web development skills, and clients not even noticing that this is physically impossible. There does not appear to be a recognised international standard for our profession.
Perhaps we should begin to take ourselves more seriously. Perhaps this survey is the first step of that process.
I don’t get the difference between
21. How long is your annual paid vacation?
and
22. How many paid holidays do you have per year?
Aren’t they asking the same thing? Or is there some distinction between holidays and vacation that isn’t obvious to non-US folks? Or is one of them supposed to be public holidays (what we call bank holidays in the UK)?
Also there’s a gap in the answers for 22 – no choice for 7-8 days.
Also, is there a password reminder form anywhere on ALA? I had to re-register because I couldn’t find one.
I’ve recently been offered my first job in the web design industry, and so a large portion of the survey isn’t applicable to me (Salary, etc). However, there isn’t an option for me to say ‘N/A’.
Along similar lines, one of the last questions is ‘What is your next career move’, to which I answered ‘Just joined the industry’ (or whatever that answer is). Shouldn’t that question be at the beginning, and if answered as I did, blank out all the other job questions, as they’re not relevant?
This survey seems to be focused on the employed web industry, not the vast number of people that operate on their own business or operate as consultants (not freelancers). These people have direct to client exposure that freelancers often don’t have.
Also there is no provision for the employed designer that also runs their own business part time as well. There are a lot of people doing this. But this seems to have been missed.
The last few questions 29-30 could have done with explanation fields so I could explain my answers too.
Salary would have be handy if you at least point us at a converter (we are not all in the US).
The survey touched on discrimination, but didn’t ask why we felt discriminated against.
The question on career moves, There was a distinct lack of choices, What do you expect self employed directors to say other than “I’m staying here”. Provision for answers relating to skill enhancement, role alteration would have been welcomed on this question.
Question is will you really bother shipping anything to anyone who wins that is outside of the US. With the giveaway consideration should be given to a global audience not a US centric one.
Paul says:
bq. The labels for the checkbox/radio inputs have broken IDs.
As it says in the article:
bq. (Note: the software that powers our survey generates id attributes that begin with numbers instead of letters—an XHTML no-no. Because of this behavior of the software, our survey currently does not validate. We’re working to resolve this problem.)
Gary asks:
bq. Question is will you really bother shipping anything to anyone who wins that is outside of the US. With the giveaway consideration should be given to a global audience not a US centric one.
As it says in the article:
bq. Happy Cog will ship the iPod directly to the winner if he or she lives in the continental U.S.; otherwise, we will reimburse you for the purchase of a 30GB iPod from an Apple store in your country. International iPod winners will be reimbursed via PayPal; you must have a PayPal account to be reimbursed.
I came here specifically to make the comment that the survey didn’t seem to acknowledge the small business person who isn’t a freelancer. I run a virtual studio, as in I don’t have employees but easily could.
Some of the self reporting for the skill sets worry me. Some people will claim to understand usability/IA/CSS but really don’t get it at the same level as represented by A List Apart.
@Eric So what happens if a person outside of the US wins the Event Apart tickets etc. What happens if they really just can’t get the airfares together (its not cheap from out here in the Never-Never) would you credit the value.
bq. So what happens if a person outside of the US wins the Event Apart tickets etc. What happens if they really just can’t get the airfares together (its not cheap from out here in the Never-Never) would you credit the value.
@Gary, We can’t pay a winner US $895 not to attend our conference. But we can hold the reservation open indefinitely. A future Event Apart event may be easier for the winner to get to. (For instance, if the winner lives in the EU, he or she might find it much easier to get to An Event Apart event held in Spain or Holland than one held in the U.S.)
I know this is a website “for people who make websites”, but not all of your readers do that professionally. For example, I work as a C++ & Java programmer. I have my own website where I experiment with web design as a kind of hobby, and that’s why I read this site, but I don’t do it professionally. So should I have listed my salary as a Software Engineer (with has nothing to do with websites), or should I have put $0 (my salary as a web designer)? I’m not sure that the results will reflect the web design field if there’s not a question to confirm that you are actually working in it.
Great question, Kip. List your income as $0. If you mark yourself as a freelancer in answer to question 11, the irrelevant, employer-related questions will disappear, and the survey will be much more straightforward for you (and your answers will be more relevant for us). Thanks!
I’m very interested in the results of this survey, but I was unable to find your privacy policy stated anywhere on the site. Your reputation as an honest and professional site speaks for itself; however, you are asking personal questions and may receive a more honest answer if your privacy policy was clearly stated upfront.
Brilliant idea, I’d just recommend tightening the ranges of salaries and hours spent working; also maybe break down work and play. I wouldn’t consider messing with some PHP script at home for 10 hours a week actual work (as part of my job) but I would count that toward something like fun/play/research/learning.
What’s the survey software you guys are using?
As someone who lives in Colorado, I’ve always found our region to be a little odd, we’re not really in the Great Plains (there be mountains here!) and definitely not Southwest (people in the South call me a Northerner). So I’d suggest a new region called Mountain States or at least something indicating where the regional dividing lines are.
A lot of these questions were unapplicable to me (e.g. how long have you been working the webdesign field, or something like that) because I’m still a high school student doing webdesign/developing/reading ALA as a hobby.
What is the statistical validity of a survey of this sort? Considering all of the survey takers are self-selected, doesn’t that skew the results? While the survey results may be interesting, I don’t see how they can be used to accurately extrapolate data and trends concerning the web design industry as a whole.
I’m not trying to be difficult here, just raising what I believe are some legitimate issues. I don’t know how a truly random survey of web designers could undertaken, especially since the field is so broad and the specific jobs are so varied. I’d be interested to hear how a statistician would assess this survey.
Just to be anal, none of the ethnicities listed are ethnicities at all (except maybe Hispanic, but that’s debatable). They are all races.
The education section is very US-centric. There are no junior colleges in Canada for example.
For the record Pacific rim covers countries mentioned elsewhere in the list (Canada, USA, much of eastern Asia, western South America, etc).
I agree with the other comments here. As someone who has started his own business, and so isn’t technically a freelancer, I felt like it was hard to express exactly where I’m at and where I’m headed. Even if I was a business owner who had employees I feel like it would have been hard to communicate this position in a way that would be valuable to the survey data.
Also, I agree with Brian Warren’s comment about Colorado – where the heck am I? I answered Great Plains b/c I know I’m not in the Midwest, but it seems silly when I literally live in the mountains…
Bryan Trogdon wrote:
bq. I’m very interested in the results of this survey, but I was unable to find your privacy policy stated anywhere on the site. Your reputation as an honest and professional site speaks for itself; however, you are asking personal questions and may receive a more honest answer if your privacy policy was clearly stated upfront.
The e-mail address is collected only if needed to contact a prize winner. It will not be used for any other purpose and will not be sold. The wording of the question did not previously make the privacy policy entirely clear. Now it does. Thanks!
Dan Wilkinson said:
bq. What is the statistical validity of a survey of this sort? Considering all of the survey takers are self-selected, doesn’t that skew the results? While the survey results may be interesting, I don’t see how they can be used to accurately extrapolate data and trends concerning the web design industry as a whole.
I can’t speak to the validity or lack thereof of a survey that is being answered by about 500 people per hour. But I can tell you that we are actively contacting communities beyond A List Apart’s in order to reach the widest cross-spectrum of designers, developers, IAs, writers, usability and accessibility people, and beyond. We’re contacting journalists as well. The more people who participate, the more data we’ll collect, and the more accurate the findings will be.
Self-selection happened with the IA and AIGA surveys, too; people who consider themselves graphic designers are more likely than others to join AIGA, and thus more likely to fill out the annual AIGA design survey. I don’t know anyone who considers the AIGA survey to be inaccurate or biased on that account.
Moreover, “web designers” may be the most self-selecting professionals in the world. Nobody gives you this job. Nobody tells you you can do it. We are all, to some extent, self-created professionals.
Maybe I’m missing something, but as someone who lives in Northern California, we don’t generally consider ourselves to be US:Southwest or US:Northwest. We’re just US:West or US:Pacific.
Thanks for the feedback and sorry for the frustrations! We matched our geographic categories to pre-existing geographic categories in the IA survey, so that it would be easier for everyone to compare results between the two surveys, once the ALA data is collected and the results are published.
But hey, if the categories really don’t work, we’ll come up with better geographic categories next year.
Thanks for this valuable feedback, and thanks for helping our industry take control of its own self-definition and destiny.
I think this a great idea, get the word out about who we are and what we do!
I think this a great idea, get the word out about who we are and what we do!
As someone mentioned this is not about ethnicity. Ethnicity would possibly be relevant, but what does the color of my skin (which this is all about) have to do with web design? I’m checking “other”, as there is no “why do you care?” option.
Ok, so there was the reason for Q3. I still think the wording should be looked over and possibly an explanation added, or the questions moved to the same page. I almost dropped the survey on page 1.
Kind of annoying … if not only for accessibility reasons but also being one of the most valued resources out there .. it should be corrected …
cheers …
@Daniel Bull: I know, that sucks. We are using a free survey tool to make this happen and that is the one thing we haven’t figured out how to customize; the system automatically applies ids to the inputs and they all, unfortunately, start with a number. This is on our list of things to fix. Thanks!
The survey wrongly assumes all are employees, and also that our day jobs are in web design.
I also agree with the earlier suggestion for “explanation fields” or textareas for further remarks.
bq. The survey wrongly assumes all are employees, and also that our day jobs are in web design.
If you answer “freelancer” on Question 11, most of the employment-related questions disappear. So I’m not sure I understand your concern.
If you work for an employer, we ask questions about your employment benefits.
If you freelance, we don’t ask those questions.
(If you freelance, we do ask about previous employment history, because most people who freelance used to work for an employer.)
If you freelance but did identify yourself as a freelancer in Question 11, then you might encounter employment-related questions that are irrelevant to you. The experience of taking the survey becomes less than satisfactory if you inadvertently enter data about yourself that is incorrect.
While this was perhaps not the point of this survey, I would have found it interesting to see what hardware and operating systems ALA readers preferred and used. I would be interested to see how different interests and skills correspond to OS.
I would also like to echo the thoughts of others. As a student just graduating with a BS in Web Development, I have been working part time in the field. Picking the answers that best represented me was difficult. Often there were no answers that really described my situation.
I am looking forward to the results!
A few things I noticed in the survey:
For question 5, about areas of competency – Where was SEO and Marketing??? This could apply to question 4 as well. Shouldn’t “people who make websites” be concerned about that as well? Isn’t it possible that some people who specialize in SEO are reading this site too? Maybe it’s just me, but I definitely think this is a big part of creating websites, whether we do it ourselves or work with other specialists.
For question 21/22 about vacation time, I wasn’t sure what the difference was between the two questions (“annual paid vacation” vs. “paid holidays”). Now I know what you meant but maybe an example in brackets (i.e. Christmas, Easter etc.) would help. Or maybe that was just me being dense 🙂
Which free survey tool are you using? I was looking for something reasonably standards compliant back in the fall but eventually gave up and started coding my own forms from scratch.
Good survey. First suggested improvement: a web design survey should have more web design specific questions, e.g.:
h5. (X)HTML and CSS authoring
* As a web author/designer/developer, do you do the following for your job:
** author and publish valid HTML4.01 or XHTML 1.0
( ) always ( ) mostly ( ) sometimes ( ) rarely ( ) never
** author and publish POSH (plain old semantic HTML)
( ) always ( ) mostly ( ) sometimes ( ) rarely ( ) never
** author and publish microformats
( ) always ( ) mostly ( ) sometimes ( ) rarely ( ) never
** author and publish valid CSS
( ) always ( ) mostly ( ) sometimes ( ) rarely ( ) never
** author and publish CSS-only layouts
( ) always ( ) mostly ( ) sometimes ( ) rarely ( ) never
** author and publish valid CSS 2.1 above just CSS1
( ) always ( ) mostly ( ) sometimes ( ) rarely ( ) never
** author and publish valid CSS3 above just CSS 2.1
( ) always ( ) mostly ( ) sometimes ( ) rarely ( ) never
** … end list (workaround for Textile bug, if you leave out this second-level list item, it includes the next h5 (and the rest of the items) *inside* the previous second-level list item, sigh.)
h5. Browser testing
* Which browsers do you test even a little the content & functionality you author & publish?
[ ] IE7 [ ] IE6 [ ] IE5.xWin [ ] IE5.xMac
[ ] FF2 [ ] FF1.5 [ ] Camino1.0 [ ] Mozilla [ ] Flock
[ ] Safari2.0 [ ] Safari1.x [ ] Opera
[ ] BlackBerry [ ] Sidekick [ ] Treo [ ] Wii
* Which browsers do you check to make sure that content looks *nearly* pixel perfect identical?
[ ] IE7 [ ] IE6 [ ] IE5.xWin [ ] IE5.xMac
[ ] FF2 [ ] FF1.5 [ ] Camino1.0 [ ] Mozilla [ ] Flock
[ ] Safari2.0 [ ] Safari1.x [ ] Opera
[ ] BlackBerry [ ] Sidekick [ ] Treo [ ] Wii
* … end list (workaround for Textile bug, if you leave out this first-level list item, it includes the next h5 (and the rest of the items) *inside* the previous first-level list item, sigh.)
h5. Javascript (in)dependence
* How much of that functionality (e.g. menus, forms, links etc.) works with Javascript turned off?
( ) all ( ) most ( ) some ( ) little ( ) none
* How much of that content is viewable with Javascript turned off?
( ) all ( ) most ( ) some ( ) little ( ) none
* … end list (workaround for Textile bug, if you leave out this first-level list item, it includes the next h5 (and the rest of the items) *inside* the previous first-level list item, sigh.)
h5. Plugin (e.g. Flash) (in)dependence
* How much of that functionality (e.g. menus, forms, links etc.) works with plugins (e.g. Flash) turned off?
( ) all ( ) most ( ) some ( ) little ( ) none
* How much of that content is viewable with plugins (e.g. Flash) turned off?
( ) all ( ) most ( ) some ( ) little ( ) none
Hmm.. the above was tested at the “Textile”:http://textism.com/tools/textile/ link above the comment form and looked fine. It appears the ALA Comment Preview code is running an earlier/buggy/less-abled version of Textile than that at the Textile home page.
bq. The more people who participate, the more data we’ll collect, and the more accurate the findings will be.
500 responses an hour does not necessarily mean your survey is generating good data. Rather, you should be looking for a representative cross-section of your target group, which theoretically could be obtained in several hundred (or at most, several thousand) responses. Quantity does not ensure quality.
The “AIGA|Aquent Salary Survey 2006”:http://www.aiga.org/resources/content/1/0/7/3/documents/salary-survey-2006.pdf research methodology page makes for interesting reading regarding target groups, response rates, margins of error, etc.
The AIGA Survey had an 8.4% response rate and was able to say:
bq. Given the size of the sample population and
of the response numbers, the aggregated
“creative” responses represents a +â?„— 1.1%
margin of error at the 95% confidence level.
I realize participants in that survey also self-selected by choosing to join AIGA … but at least AIGA membership served as a baseline by which responses could be measured. With the ALA Survey there is no comparable professional body from which participants can be culled.
Second suggested improvement: Every “( ) Other” or “[ ] Other” should have a text input box next to it that shows up when the “other” radio/checkbox is clicked. This would enable the survey taker to enter more detailed/specific information. For example, the ability enter a specific “Other” ethnicity might reduce some of the disenfranchisement that minor-minorities may feel in comparison to the few major-minorities that are deemed statistically significant enough to merit their own radio buttons.
@Dan:
A problem with all surveys is that they are taken by self-selecting people who don’t mind taking surveys.
It’s true of every survey ever taken on any subject.
As there is no data about our field, and as no other industry leader has stepped forward to collect data about our field, we decided to collect data about the field as a first step toward closing an immense knowledge gap.
Actually, it’s a second step. As a first step, we commissioned a study by the researchers of The New York Public Library. But our researchers were not able to collect data on web design per se, because there isn’t any. Hence, this survey.
It is a beginning, not an end. It is not perfect. You appear to have research experience. You might want to volunteer to help us make next year’s survey even better. Thank you for your valuable insights and feedback.
@Alan:
bq. While this was perhaps not the point of this survey, I would have found it interesting to see what hardware and operating systems ALA readers preferred and used.
It would be interesting! But it was not the point of the survey. Extraneous questions would lengthen the survey, discouraging some people from taking it.
Also, if we had included such questions, it might have been seen as a ploy to collect data on our readers so as to make our magazine more attractive to advertisers. It’s okay to collect such data if you’re honest about it; it’s not okay to collect it under the guise of finding out information about our industry. That was the other reason we chose not to ask about Photoshop, Macs vs. PCs, similar questions.
@Megan:
bq. For question 5, about areas of competency — Where was SEO and Marketing??? This could apply to question 4 as well. Shouldn’t “people who make websites”? be concerned about that as well? Isn’t it possible that some people who specialize in SEO are reading this site too?
Excellent point. You’re right. We’ll do better next year.
@Tantek:
bq. a web design survey should have more web design specific questions, e.g. (X)HTML and CSS authoring
You are the Tantekiest!
That would also be a useful sort of survey. This survey, though, is about the business side of the profession, because nothing is known about it.
bq. It appears the ALA Comment Preview code is running an earlier/buggy/less-abled version of Textile than that at the Textile home page.
That should get fixed in an updated version of the CMS, coming soon. I also have a 12MB bug report on Technorati, if you are interested. Zing! 😀
@Jeffrey:
bq. It is a beginning, not an end. It is not perfect. You appear to have research experience. You might want to volunteer to help us make next year’s survey even better. Thank you for your valuable insights and feedback.
I applaud your effort. An imperfect start is better than no start at all and I think the information gained from this survey will definitely serve as foundation for further research.
I should add that I have absolutely no research experience. I don’t think that negates the points I was trying to make; they are honest questions and concerns. That said, I would be glad to help in any way possible.
It’s funny – as a web professional, I often forget that just as I aim to create an effective and pleasing user experience for my users, there are other web professionals doing the same thing for me when I’m a user.
In that light, my earlier post seems to imply that I only have negative feedback. The truth is, my overall experience with the survey was excellent, the information being gathered is relevant and interesting, and I look forward to seeing a follow-up report.
I appreciate A List Apart for taking the initiative to take stock of our industry and fill in an information void. Keep it up.
Thank you, Aliotsy.
Perhaps I was reading too fast but was the salary question before or after taxes?
I think Onno conveys a number of social aspects that, if asked, would’ve proven to be common responses.
Excellent idea nonetheless, and long overdue.
Question 20. “How many web design jobs have you held?”
It reads simple enough, but I thought about it too long. I call each site I work on a “job.”? I think perhaps you were trying to get at jobs that would be listed on your resume. The word “held”? should have tipped me off, but I missed the boat on that one.
Can there be a US:west for the geographic location. I didn’t know what to put because I didn’t consider any of the choices entirely correct. I am in Utah.
Is it just me or does the rest of the web industry have their employers deliver a lot less than what they are actually competent in ? (Questions 5 versus 6, in case people don’t know what I’m talking about)
Hi ALA! Awesome survey. Thanks so much for doing this!
In thinking about next year, one of the ideas I wanted to support is revamping the geographic location choices. Members of the WaSP ILG have been brainstorming about how to improve this section for next year. I found this comment very enlightening:
“All of Africa one category? All of EU (except the UK) one category? All of Asia (except India) one category?
And wondering where I might locate New Zealand. I’m assuming they would expect it under “Pacific Rim” – which isn’t a category we would use. And, you know, the Pacific is a BIG OCEAN. The “rim” encompasses Japan, Canada, USA (including Alaska and Hawaii), Mexico, the west coast of South America …
I would have thought either it’s a survey for US people, in which case the US categories make sense. Else it’s a survey for the world, in which case the categories they’ve used can be refined for next year’s survey.”
I can’t wait to see the results from this year’s survey. ALA rocks!
gender is either masculine or feminine or somewhere in between or neither, but it is not male or female
a person’s sex (as in organs), on the other hand, is male or female – mind you some people are both, so you shouldn’t be so quick to assume and only offer 2 alternatives
and then there’s sexual orientation, but I don’t want to confuse even more
point is, you should offer an “other” button
First I want to congratulate you for carrying out this survey. I hope that the result will be made public.
As someone whose degree (many years ago) is directly related to surveys and survey analysis, I understand the issues with methodology and sampling. However, it looks like will be by far the best snapshot of people working in the web industry.
I found the questions, very US centric which is understandable seeing you are US based. I have no idea what a junior college is, but here in Oz we have TAFE (technical and further education) college which train web people. I could give plenty of others, particularly perks and job titles. Which is why I would to of liked to of seen a text field for “other”. How do I explain my big perk is 3 months paid leave after seven years of service.
One other question I would of asked is how much time do you spend each week to keep you skills up to date.
As for Tantek’s suggested questions and others about OS, software etc. Perhaps in a few months time you should carry out a similar survey on work practices. I am sure that a number of companies (i.e. Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, book publishers) would stump up cash or other goodies to see a wide ranging survey on web design practices HTML/XHTML/CSS/validation/JS/flash/…, backend languages (PHP,.net, rails etc.), tools used (ie HTML editors), what the intend to learn next, etc.
Though I’m still a student I am working in a company right now as the final stage of my studies so I used the experience from that to fill out the survey as best as I could.
I’m very interested in the results however.
Agree with all the comments about it not being designed for people who run their own company (like being self-employed but not… I can’t think how to explain the difference).
A question about a question:
Question 17: It’s not clear what is meant by this, whether it’s Design vs application development? I worked it out in the end (is the whole of your job web design?) but it’s not phrased well.
And the first answer: “I’m a full-time web worker.”. eh? Doesn’t fit with the style of the rest of the answers.
To follow up on Tantek vs Jeffrey:
Nowadays, at the very least XHTML and CSS _are_ part of ??the business side of the profession??. So it would have been interesting to ask about the penetration of web standards on this business side:
* Impact on coding policies (and actual enforcement).
* Impact on hiring requirements (and actual enforcement).
* Impact on customer demands (and actual implementation).
* Impact on marketing approach.
* Impact on sales and/or return on investment.
* Etc.
“Glenda”:http://alistapart.com/comments/webdesignsurvey?page=5#48:
bq. “All of Africa one category? All of EU (except the UK) one category? All of Asia (except India) one category?”
Our initial inclination was to list every nation on earth in a drop-down. But the other surveys didn’t do this. We followed their lead so we (and you) could more compare our findings to theirs.
Some designers will identify as designers, and take the AIGA survey; some will identify as web designers, and take ours; some will take both. The same is true for IAs and the IA survey. Copying patterns established by previous surveys (such as the way they categorized geographic regions) will enable apple-to-apple comparisons.
“Nick”:http://alistapart.com/comments/webdesignsurvey?page=5#50 (and others):
Please continue to provide detailed information about mystifying Americanisms (“junior college”) and needed options (“I would to of liked to of seen a text field for ‘other’ — How do I explain my big perk is 3 months paid leave after seven years of service.”) so we can work them into next year’s survey. We really value this help!
The software doesn’t allow such things as mixing checkboxes and radio buttons (Tantek’s suggestion) or ending a multiple choice list with a text field, but one can work around some of those limitations by chunking the questions into multiple units. For example, a multiple-choice question that ends with a checkbox or radio button for “Other” might be followed by a new question that says, “If you checked ‘Other’, please provide more details [text entry box].”
“Peter”:http://alistapart.com/comments/webdesignsurvey?page=6#52:
bq. Agree with all the comments about it not being designed for people who run their own company (like being self-employed but not”¦ I can’t think how to explain the difference).
I understand the difference—I’m a living example myself—and it’s a failing of this year’s survey that it doesn’t exactly accommodate this special category.
For instance, in filling out Question 4, if you are the owner of a small or virtual company, if your title is “Founder” or “CEO,” you would have to choose “Other.” If you are a creative director and the founder of a small or virtual company, you would choose “Creative Director”—but the survey would miss the important data that you are a creative director at a company you own.
Jeffrey,
The other limitation I had with this survey was that I’m both a paid employee of one company and the creative director/founder of another. Multiskilling and multi-role responsibility doesn’t really sit well with question 4. I second Tantek, Nick Cowie and Nicolas Prade on the additional value/aims that could be gained from this sort of survey, especially in regards to coding standards and in regards to business adoption, enforcement and organisational policies.
As a genderqueer lesbian, I’d just like to point out that “gender” is a social construct and the question should use the term “sex” if meant to refer to the biological um… bits. Also, if the survey kept with term “gender” then the response options should be “masculine”, “feminine”, or “other”. Alternatively, you could ask for both “gender” and “sex”.
This certainly affects the intentions of Question 31, which asks about prejudice and discrimination.
Right o.
My general feeling consists of gratitude for this community … thanks for the efforts and work.
So I completed the survey and the link badge was at the end. But that’s the trouble, it’s only at the end and now that I am actually ready to setup a link badge I can’t get to the thing.
How about throwing it up front?
Sorry but am I the only front-end developer who hadn’t seen his job title in the survey?
If I am then maybe I have accomplished the Highlander’s mission…
No, seriously if there are no others there’s no need to add this job title in the next survey just for me. But if not – the ever growing front-ender’s community will be glad to have the ALA’s recognition. Thank you!
Great site, Great content, Great ideas!
Asian
Black
Hispanic
Other
White
-These are not ethnicities, they are races. Why do Native or Indigenous folks have to choose “other”?
The survey should include a text box so that people can self-identify. (the same goes for the gender section…)
You are missing a big, big chunk of data by skewing this survey so much towards the employed. Come on, you guys can do better than this… I just wasted my time taking this survey, because you’re not including very relevant data by not asking the right questions. Surveys are all about the way questions are asked. Hire someone who knows how to create one correctly next time, you’ll serve the design community a lot better by doing so…
I think this survey is great – and am looking forward to the results – I agree with many of the comments regarding the US-centric nature of this survey. I’d also like to learn more about respondants’ actual roles. The majority of the titles and roles listed are very functional – there was a lack of strategic, or consultative roles (I think someone else mentioned this with regard to being too “employee-centric”) While I am an “employee,” I have a very strategic/consultative role – my title is actually “strategist.” I work with global enterprises to help them determine, based on business goals and user requirement, what direction they should take on the Web. I’d like to learn more about others in similar roles.
While it may be a nightmare to process – perhaps including an open text field when “other” is an option would help you to further refine furture surveys.
Having gone through this exercise before when designing the IA Institute’s survey (and subsequently catching hell for the design decisions) I think you all did a fine job here. While there may be bickering about the choice and structure of questions, the data will prove to be enlightening and useful in helping us all improve the profession.
We’ve discussed doing something like this as an internal exercise in our company for years. I can imagine how difficult it was pull together, and appreciate a job well done.
We look forward to reviewing the data, and participating in future surveys.
I am currently working on getting my degree in applied graphics/visual communications and so while I am not yet actually working in the field I have every intention of doing so…
Anyway, it occured to me that perhaps another set of questions directed at college students majoring in web relative fields could provide useful info. For instance you could see what areas tend to be most attractive to different demographics of students, i.e. new students, people changing careers from a totally different field, people that worked in tech fields that are expanding their knowledge…etc.
…just an idea…
Ok slightly off topic but the about the author section for the ALA staff seems a bit off.
“The staff of A List Apart *has* great hair.”
I could be completely wrong but should’nt it read “The staff of A List Apart have great hair.”, the staff of course could be such a strong group of people that they classify themselves as one being.
Survey is definately great though, chucked it onto the others at work and told them to do it, i am not sure if they will or not. Lazy bunch of designers.
To add to the chorus of people pointing out the US-centricity, for future surveys I’d like to suggest for 9 (education) choices for technical college and/or specialized trade school. Only about 10% of the population go to University here – most people go to practical training type schools (Fachhochschule, Berufschule etc here in Switzerland), including those in “Informatik” (IT), with mandatory apprenticeship periods. This is not that uncommon in many European countries I believe.
The benefits area was interesting in that many things like health insurance are mandatory (i.e. not really a benefit per se) in many non-US countries.
On an unrelated note, I was able to go in to take the survey twice (I did it to look up the list for question 9, then I aborted)…if people can take the survey multiple times the data may get rather skewed. Cookies?
Re: “LINK BADGE”:http://www.alistapart.com/comments/webdesignsurvey?page=6#57”
Robert said:
bq. So I completed the survey and the link badge was at the end. But that’s the trouble, it’s only at the end and now that I am actually ready to setup a link badge I can’t get to the thing. How about throwing it up front?
Robert, it’s “here”:http://aneventapart.com/webdesignsurvey/thankyou.php .
Re: “OTHERING”:http://www.alistapart.com/comments/webdesignsurvey?page=6#59”
Eric said:
bq. Asian Black Hispanic Other White -These are not ethnicities, they are races. Why do Native or Indigenous folks have to choose “other”??
No, they are ethnicities:
Re: “HAS GREAT HAIR”:http://www.alistapart.com/comments/webdesignsurvey?page=7#65”
Karl said:
bq. I could be completely wrong but should’nt it read “The staff of A List Apart have great hair.”?,
In British usage, the staff have great hair. And Oliver’s Army are here to stay.
In American usage, the staff has great hair. And Oliver’s Army is here to stay.
@whomever thought the ethnicity question was irrelevant:
As a black, female web designer, I’m actually very interested in finding out how many other blacks and women are in the industry. My interactions with other designers, both online and off, have led me to suspect that the industry is heavily populated with white men. I’m curious to hear some data about this.
Lots of hostile responses to the survey, and even more random grandstanding which I thought was…weird, but whatever. I look forward to the results.
I’d be interested to see some data of the physical effects of the profession…such as short sightedness or being overweight.
I know my lifestyle has contributed to being short sighted.
I’d like to see a lot more questions regarding preferred technologies. E.g.
If you do backend programming, do you prefer php, ruby, java, asp, cf, etc…
Do you identify more with the LAMP bundle or Microsoft?
Do you generally use open source, closed source, or tailor made solutions?
What Search Engine do you use?
What browser / Platform / Screen size do you use predominantly?
Order the following list, starting with the things which are most important to you:
“¢ Accessibility
“¢ Standards Compliance
“¢ Cross Browser Compatibility
“¢ Usability
“¢ Discoverability
“¢ Security
“¢ Aesthetics
“¢ Search Engine Optimisation
“¢ Speed of Development
Question 4 needs a choice like Junior Developer. Having a “junior” status doesn’t necessarily mean I know less it just means I get paid less.
Also my specific profession is completely missing. I do Email Marketing and SEO. I would definitely consider what I do to be more on in the field of Web Development (and thus worthy of being in the survey) than marketing even though we almost always are working with the marketing department of our clients.
I would have liked to have been able to explain any “other” choices I made.
I guess I shouldn’t have submitted my comment quite yet.
In Question 11, Whats the difference between US:Midwest and US:Great Plains. Living smack dab in the middle of Illinois (Peoria, IL to be exact) I’m really in both.
I apologize if I came across a little nit-picky. Let me now that the time to say how much I appreciate this effort. You guys are very correct; there is definitely a lack of data about out field.
I personally found the questions about gender and race being an issue in employment to be very important. Although I have the most education in the office, as well as most experience in information engineering, I am always made aware that some colleagues don’t approve of females working in IT, much less in development. I wonder how many other female developers face these issues.
I would love to be able to view the results when this survey is completed, and perhaps discuss the outcome with an open forum.
I also found the holiday/vacations questions to be confusing – perhaps wording the holidays as state/govt/bank holidays would clarify the issue.
“J. Zeldman wrote”:http://alistapart.com/comments/webdesignsurvey?page=6#54
bq. Our initial inclination was to list every nation on earth in a drop-down. But the other surveys didn’t do this. We followed their lead so we (and you) could more compare our findings to theirs. […] Copying patterns established by previous surveys (such as the way they categorized geographic regions) will enable apple-to-apple comparisons.
That’s reasonable on the face of it, but you’ve made your data less useful, the survey more confusing, and you didn’t need to do so.
The part about making the survey more confusing should be fairly evident from the number of comments saying “Wait, where do I live?” and “Does Colorado count as south west?” and such. But perhaps the “data less useful” part is not so obvious.
It’s a matter of _data conversion_. If you’ve got a specific location, you can turn it into a more general location. Egypt is in Africa. So if you know the respondent is from Egypt, you also know that he or she is from Africa. But if all you know is that the respondent is from Africa, then it’s impossible to say where exactly in Africa that person might be. Could be Congo. Or Sudan. Or Cote d’Ivoire. Or Algeria. You can convert a specific location into a general, but not vice versa.
For next year, consider this approach:
1) Put in a drop-down of every nation on earth so people can just pick whatever country they happen to live in.
2) Re-categorize that data later. “Oh, they’re in Botswana. That counts as Africa.”
3) For the apples-to-apples comparison you’re interested in, just coordinate with the AIGA people to make sure that your general-area categories and theirs match up.
Lastly, I’d like to add a “me too” to the employee-over-focused bandwagon. I’m not a free-lancer, exactly, but neither am I a full-time employee. I’m a full-time graduate student. I teach composition to support myself. But I also maintain the departmental web site, and do assorted odds-and-ends of web work to supplement my rather meager income. I suppose you could call the web parts “freelance.” But all of that “freelance” work comes from just one client, the university, who is also my regular employer. So I’m neither fish nor fowl.
I think this survey is great. Very professional, as one would expect from the ALA guys.
I would however like to know if the data will be available in raw format? The reason i’m asking is because i am studying in college and i am currently taking an “Applied Statistics” course. This data would be very fun to test out some of the concepts.
Furthermore i think that by publishing the data a lot of interesting analysis could come to light.
My apologies if this has already been answered
“Jonathan Worent”:http://www.alistapart.com/comments/webdesignsurvey?page=8#72 asked:
bq. In Question 11, Whats the difference between US:Midwest and US:Great Plains. Living smack dab in the middle of Illinois (Peoria, IL to be exact) I’m really in both.
Pick the one that most precisely fits your location. Sounds like Great Plains may be the more precise choice for you.
From the comments here and at zeldman.com, I think we’ve established that a number of people are uncomfortable with the geographic categories. Discomfort with these categories may not be a majority opinion: many thousands of people have already taken the survey vs. a couple of dozen complaints in this forum. But more complaints may await us in the comments fields of the survey itself.
Should this really be called “Web Design Survey”? This catch-all phrase is used for every type of web activity, e.g. coding, techical support, online marketing, content production – as well as design. indeed, the survey questions themselves show that it is not focused exclusively on design.
Something like “Web Activity Survey” or “Web Management Survey” would be better, methinks.
Oo – careful not to confuse “feedback” and “complaints”, Mr. Zeldman. I can’t speak for others, but I was offering feedback.
As a “convenient” and “self-selecting” survey, it’s statistically garbage. However, I am anxious to see the results.
These are the same problems that haunt design in general: who is a legitimate designer, and how do you know?
bq. As a “convenient”? and “self-selecting”? survey, it’s statistically garbage.
Do you talk to everyone that way?
Good idea, and ALA is a good place to do this survey. But I think you need to improve the way the survey adapts itself to the respondent, and further consider all the different types of people who might answer the survey. I got several questions which your survey shouldn’t have asked me, considering my earlier answers.
A bit more on non-business aspects of the profession would be useful too. Your say the survey is supposed to be about the business side, but why not also make it about the technical side, and about social aspects? For example, if you asked more technical questions about things like standards or programming languages, we could look for correlation between income and standards-compliance, or between favoured languages and career intentions, or whatever.
I understand that you want to keep the survey short so that more people respond, but the problem of attention span should be addressed the survey’s dynamism — it could be possible for the respondent to opt out of certain sets of questions if they can’t be bothered with them, or for your software to make an informed guess about what level of detail they’re likely to be able/willing to answer.
For example, certain groups of people (like standards enthusiasts) would be very happy to spend half an hour answering detailed questions. So you could ask, “To what extent do you care about web standards?”, and then if they express a strong interest, you know you can get away with asking detailed questions like “Do you think mark-up validity matters?”
OK, most analysis of this data won’t concern technicalities like that. But a lot of the analysis will relate to only small groups of respondents, and not to the entire dataset. E.g. we might want to compare the average income of freelance PHP developers with that of salaried PHP developers (in which case we’d obviously only look at surveys that had been answered by PHP developers), or see if people with a particular speciality (AJAX, Flash, database design) tend to have particular views on the social relevance of the internet, or on professionalism, or…
This post is getting very long. My basic point is that if you’re going to do a big survey like this, you might as well cover social and technical aspects as well, and that wouldn’t necessarily put people off. And if you’re getting 500 responses an hour, you can afford to lose a few.
Somewhere, Amber Simmons wrote “Lots of hostile responses to the survey, and even more random grandstanding which I thought was”¦weird, but whatever. I look forward to the results.”
I agree, and me too.
After browsing through the comments, I am stunned at the amount of complaining about the questions (as opposed to feedback). Particularly for a FIRST annual survey.
I’m a chemist from the mid-western U.S. whose experience in web design is posting technical information for my employer and putting up my personal website. I have never made a dime doing it. I get 18 days vacation and a smattering of national holidays, but no bank holidays since I am not in that business. I had no trouble answering any of the survey’s questions and was able to complete it in about 10 minutes. I find it disturbing that so many people who are ostensibly creative designers have trouble finding plausible ways to answer basic questions. Especially making the connection that “other” can mean “none of the above”.
Cheers,
Peter
The survey was pretty easy to take. There were a few times I felt like nothing really applied, or I would have like to explain myself, but only one time I didn’t pick at least one of the options. Maybe more “other,” “n/a” or “don’t know” options for us perfectionists that don’t like to pick a choice that isn’t 100% accurate. 🙂
I would suggest that any list of ranges NOT include the same number in more than one range. For instance, on hours worked per week, don’t make the top range number of one range be the same as the bottom number of another range. Instead of 30-40 hours a week and 40-50 hours, make ranges like 30-39, 40-49 so someone at 40 hours a week doesn’t have to decide which button to select. Same with incomes, etc.
This so great! I love comments. All these people complaining about ids and i don`t know which button to click…
“But more complaints may await us in the comments fields of the survey itself.”
After looking at these comments I am very sorry about my comment in the comments fields of the survey itself. It was not about ids and geography issues though. As always alistapart did hit some kind of nerve (is this the right idiom?). I am not sure if this is about the topic or about online surveys in general.
So what made me complaining (I would like to say feddbacking :-))? I would have loved to be asked some other kinds of questions like: How do you cope with the ever changing demands. Maybe something about work-life balance? How many hours do you spend unpaid in front of your computer (or on a train) gathering information or solving problems just because you are interested and love what you are doing? Are you getting trouble with your boyfriend, wife, children, partner because you are spending to much time on your job? Do you sometimes work unpaid doing stuff you think is great or for people you like? Do you share your knowledge on forums and blogs. Are you giving in to clients who don`t know anything about web standards and stuff. Are your clients as bad as mine? Sorry about that last bit. How important is money for you when you are considering a job?
These are things i would like to know? But they a really hard to fit in a survey aren`t they?
I will spread the news about this survey i think it is a start and as we all know the next one will be even better…
I think this survey is a great idea, good work ALA!
I agree with previous posts about the survey being US centric, I think next time using slightly more generic options in the education category and allowing people to select their country would help. I also thought it would be more useful (and culturally sensitive) to include more options in the “ethnicity” question, and add a further question asking something like “Do you consider yourself as belonging to an ethnic minority in your country” as that seems to be what the question is really getting at.
Anyway that’s my $0.20 worth. In brief, some suggested (Australian centric) additional answer options…..
Education –
Technical College
Software Vendor Certified Training
Ethnicity –
Pacific Islander
Aboriginal
(I’m sure more should be added from other places to!)
Location –
Major City
Regional City
Rural
(or something along those lines)
I’d also like to see some questions about professional networking.
Hope this helps!
I do most of my work as a volunteer.. Ergo, I get no money for my work.
From reading these posts, I see proof that our industry has lots of diversity. Two people can do the exact same jobs with entirely different job titles, or self-employed vs. working for a firm. This survey did a good job trying to appease the many different flavors within the “Web Design” Community. Or is it the “Internet Development” Community? Or maybe it’s something else…”Those Who Make The Web A Better Place For Everyone Else” Community.
Dang, gotta go change my business cards again.
I was able to complete it in like 10 or 15 minutes, a few days ago… Good questions. Survey not too long, not too short. Overall…
Maybe I just agree to some extent with
http://alistapart.com/comments/webdesignsurvey?page=9#81
…option to answer with greater detail would be nice:)
Cheers 🙂
Early on it asks what my employer expects of me, only to later ask what kind of organization I work for. I am an IP so I treated the former question as my own expectations of myself and my clients expectations of me (which left me checking every single box).
I would suggest asking the organization type early on and tailoring a few questions off of the answer. I would be very interested in some answers related to IP’s.
It was definitely a good first survey, though I have some comments like some of the others posted.
Definately the biggest issue I see is in whether we are self-employed, someone who incorporated their business and is considered an employee of it, traditional business employees, unpaid interns or volunteers, or any combination of the above. Since I’ve always been a business owner/self-employed (literally, from the point I was legally able to work), I’ll show you what the way I felt like I had to answer some of these was. Who knows, it might give you an idea of how other business owners may have answered.
_#4. What is your job title?_
I typically try to answer those kinds of questions with what I do most often. So for this, I answered that – but already you are losing data because there is no question before it asking if I am a business owner or not (should be able to choose more than one).
_#6. Regardless of how competent you believe yourself to be, in which of these areas does your employer expect you to be proficient?_
For this I simply answered what I expected from myself.
_18. How many web design jobs have you held._
I wasn’t sure about this question. Again seems geared toward the employer/employee thing, but my instinct was to answer this as how many clients I’d done work for. Obviously that’s not a good reflection of the number because it only goes up to 10 and its far beyond that. I could’ve instead answered ‘1’ since I’ve always worked for myself, but that wouldn’t necessarily be a good reflection either. Perhaps the question could instead ask – how many different websites have you worked on – that could potentially cover both freelancers and employees.
Other comments – not related to the employee/employer thing.
You might want to make #9 _(What is your educational background?)_ a question that includes the word ‘some’. As in ‘some college’ or in some way indicating that the person might actually be in school currently. I sometimes portion out work to interns, so they would fit in that category of ‘some school.’
_Question #15. For how many years have you been working as a web professional?_
You might want to ask also how many years total someone has worked in the tech industry. You might find some interesting data about people who are web pros now who were previously in other fields. Personally, I started out as a desktop applications developer, then became a database architect, and then to web design. Might show some interesting data.
Just my two cents 🙂
Like another commenter earlier, I was somewhat surprised to not see “Software Engineer” in the list of titles, so I was forced to choose “Other”. I know that many software engineers do hate working on UI of any sort but there are some of us who like it and do quite a bit of it. 🙂 In my job I do everything from database queries to Java/JSP to HTML/CSS to Javascript to graphic design. But I guess the companies I’ve worked for have always required that their UI person also be able to handle large-scale server-side Java coding – cheaper than getting separate back-end & front-end developers, I guess!
Thanks for very interesting article. btw. I really enjoyed reading all of your articles. It’s interesting to read ideas, and observations from someone else’s point of view”¦ makes you think more. Greetings
Is there an archive of people who have completed this form? It would be interesting to see who has.
I’ve not read all the messages, so someone else may have mentioned it … many of the questions weren’t that relevant to people who work in Education – teaching Web design.
I noted earlier that someone else commented on the difficulties of self rating on skill sets – a binary choice between “can” & “can’t” doesn’t give much scope. A few more grades such as “know a little”, “know a reasonable amount” “Considered by my colleagues a guru – but I know that there’s still more I could learn” could be useful.
The introduction asked where we live, who we are, yet there are very few questions related to these issues.
Do you own or rent?
What city do you live in (there is a big difference between living in NYC and Burlington, VT)?
What is your monthly housing cost?
How do you get to work?
-public transportation
-car
-bike
What do you think are the most relevant new technologies?
-video
-virtual worlds
-online games
-blogs
-other
More in-depth questions about technology would be great too..
What platform do you use?
-Linux
-Windows
-Mac
What browser do you use for personal web surfing?
-Firefox
-IE
-Safari
-Opera
-etc
What browser do you test web sites in?
-Firefox
-IE
-Safari
-Opera
-etc
What software do you use (design)?
What software do you use (development)?
What software do you use (multimedia)?
What other mediums are you developing/designing for?
-Cell phone
-iPhone
-online games
-console games
-online video
-podcasts
What technology are you looking to add to your arsenal
-video editing
-video production
-3D modelling
-3D animation
-mobile apps
-etc
We could go alot deeper than this survey. I’ve seen surveys with these same questions for years, they are to general. You asked if we had a web site/blog. They are 2 VERY distinctly different things. Most web designers/developers have a portfolio site, sometimes their own, sometimes on a portal like CreativeHotlist. But other than showing off their work, how many of us are talking about what is going on in the world or our industry via blogs? Are they using text blogs or vlogs? How many to podcasts or vodcasts? How many own their own URL? How many own their own SWURL (Synthetic World URL)? What do we use for email (webmail, squirrel mail, office, etc)? What is their primary communication platform with clients (phone, email, face-to-face, web meeting, virtual world, letters, etc.).
Come on, let’s get into the nitty gritty!
Thanks to all who commented on ways we might improve the survey as a tool for discovering where and how folks like us work. Many of these suggestions will find their way into next year’s survey.
To those who wished the survey had asked about platforms, browsers, standards, etc., we will run a second survey later this year that asks precisely these kinds of questions.
Two surveys are needed. The most critical survey, in our estimation, was the one that tried to find out who we are and how we work. That was the survey more than 30,000 of you have just completed. We will publish the results in about a month, and we will conduct the survey again next year.
The second survey concerns skills and attitudes. Look for that survey in four or five months.
A List Apart intends to run both surveys each year, about six months apart. Over the next few years, with your help and support, we will be able to sketch the first true picture of web design as it is practiced around the world. Thanks again.
Congratulations on taking the first step, ALA. It was a trail blazing effort, and I am honored that I had a chance to participate.
Somewhere in this sea of comments I read an excellent observation, that this survey has “touched some nerves…” indeed. I think the complaints, feedback, and tide of comments stem from an enthusiastic, passionate (albeit sometimes juvenile and immature) crowd who wanted themselves represented as accurately as possible, afraid that the chance may never come ’round again.
Glad to see you’re taking it all in stride, and I hope the next one will be as illuminating as I expect this one will be.
bq. … We will publish the results in about a month, …
posted at 11:38 am on May 20, 2007 by Jeffrey Zeldman
Can’t wait 😉
eey all,
overall the survey seems good, …
cheers…!@!
The suspense is killing me. Are you guys EVER going to post the results?
Come on guys, it’s been a month since the last promise, we’re dying of curiosity here!
Seriously, its been quite some time. Is there any progress?
Did something go wrong?
I too cannot wait!
Is everything ok? Need help? I’m really curious about the results and hoping that they aren’t too out of date when we see them.
The data will be becoming redundant soon it seems. I sure hope this wasn’t a data mining exercise.
Just seen Zeldman has announced they will be publishing the results today! Hooray for my sense of timing… :/
This message has been appeared.
The web design survey is now closed.
What’s next???
I like it
Noticed a typo on question 24. $10,000-$19,9999 has an extra 9. Thanks Don.
Matt Cutts from Google has included in his blogs that he intends to penalise websites that are “˜over optimised’ on back links, directory listings and inappropriate article submissions. I have kept my ears close to the ground on this issue and lately I have been reading a few horrific stories of the outcome. I don’t want to alarm or scaremonger but you will need to go out and find the facts for yourself and consider how it could impact on you if you are a website owner.
The uncertainty at the moment is felt by all — whether web owners have participated in Good organic link building or even SEO Companies who have built up good portfolio’s and used proper “˜White Hat’ methods, nobody knows the outcome of the Google Algorithms. If you have access to Google analytics for your website all you can do is monitor the trends, the sad thing here is that there is no “˜system restore’ and if you have built up a number of poorly placed back links you will find it near impossible to have these removed. You Could ask your SEO specialist why your hits have dropped and ask what are they going to do about it.
I know a few who are just sitting back and praying!