Freelancers Are Selfish
April 12, 2010
I recently read a great post from Webdesigner Depot that enumerated a number of things web designers and developers do wrong. The post was followed by many comments (83 as of this writing) and most of those discussed the part about being a “jack of all trades.” There were many points of view regarding this subject, and it’s a theme that comes up often when talking to other people in the industry.
Should you learn back end programming? front end? specialize? generalize? Depending on who you ask the answer again varies drastically. From my own observations I believe that most designers or developers get started by doing one thing, and quickly realize that they need to acquire new skills in order to deliver a finished product (i.e. a beautiful, usable, accessible, semantic web site that ranks well and is loved by millions.)
The harsh truth is that we do that because we are selfish. Let’s take for example Joe Design. Joe is really good at writing dynamic applications, is able to write decent AJAX calls, and can take a PSD mock up ad turn it into clean HTML/CSS. Joe’s client needs a web site so she hires him to manage the project from beginning to end. Now Joe decides that since he knows enough jQuery to make AJAX work he should be able to create a good interface using this library, yet he knows very little about user experience and interfaces. He also decides that since he’s been in the industry long enough his designs are good enough, although in truth he’s getting a lot of “inspiration” from other sources. He also reads a lot, so that should qualify him to write decent copy, after all, how hard could it be?
By the time the project is finished, there’s a great backend that fails to deliver a compelling experience, and the client is quite disappointed with the result. Joe could’ve called on fellow freelancers to help him out with the design, interface and copy, but he figured that would leave him less money and that after all he could “hack” his way through his weaker skills and learn a bit more about them while doing it. In truth, Joe could’ve hired fellow freelancers, deliver a top notch product, have a happy client, and still learn while doing it.
It’s time that we stop being selfish. Build a trusted network of professionals and by doing so you will deliver better products and services, keep clients happy and get even more work that you would otherwise. I’m not advocating not learning new skills, but we need to be cognizant of our own limitations.
Do you work with other freelancers? Are you a jack of all trades? Are you being selfish? I’d love to get your two cents.
Tags: design, Development, freelance, jobs
2 Responses to “Freelancers Are Selfish”
-
Nicely thought out. We do need to realize that when we use a project as an excuse to learn something new there are consequences. True, we come out learning a bit, but perhaps the quality of the project suffers in the end. Is that trade-off worth it? Sometimes maybe it is, and sometimes maybe not.
I also agree with the idea of sharing the project with a few other freelancer that specialize in those areas. At the very least we need to be responsible enough to explain this to a potential client… Would they rather only experts work on it and pay more, or would they like the nice discount on the tab by allowing you to learn as you go.
Evan Mullins´s last blog ..Apple and Flash and HTML5 | Flash not dead
Speak up
I am and have always been a specialist. I can do front-end stuff, but I will never ever even try to offer these services as a professional service, because I know I am not good enough to deliver those.
In the past I’ve worked with a trusted network of freelancers. Me focussing on back-end work, others for design, even others for the front-end development and (when necessary) even others for the server-part of the architecture (I am no system architect, just a software engineer).
Any money going to other parties can be taken into the offering to the client. This might not always get you a project, but at least you know that when you get a project, you can deliver it, and deliver it well. This is worth a lot, because your client will be happy and they will recommend you to others.