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Freelance designers often have to take on more types of responsibilities than those of us who work as part of a larger design agency or design team. Freelance designers don’t always get the benefits of being able to delegate a portion of their design projects to another, or to lean on other individuals when it comes to administrative and managerial duties like invoicing/billing, project planning, taxes, sales, etc.
Because freelancers have so much on our plates, we need all the help we can get, regardless of where this help comes from, or what part of our creative process we can get it on.
Which is why, while generally helpful to all web professionals, feedback is very crucial to freelance workers in the web design industry.
One need not even be a freelance web designer to see and understand how much weight feedback carries in our work.
In this article, I’ll discuss my main reasons for why I think feedback matters so much to freelancers.
Feedback gives us an avenue for sharpening our skills and honing our craft. When engage with the users we are building our designs for, we gain insights and viewpoints that help us improve our current and future products and services.
Many of us in the industry hand off a design, and then move on to our next contract without giving the previous one much of a second thought.
Out of sight and out of touch with the client, then certainly out of mind. However, is that really helping us move forward with our creative and professional abilities?
I can understand the view that once we have handed off our deliverables, technically and legally, our work is done.
But, to me, until a web design has real people using it, our duties aren’t complete yet. That final step of having real users interacting with our product is very important in allowing us to develop our skills further.
Once the design is actually in use, we can then garner important insights as to what we did well in the project. And what we didn’t.
We can harvest this valuable resource of information through the implementation of feedback-gathering tools, by reading comments on social media with the use of social media monitoring tools, teasing out trends indirectly via website analytics, and so on.
In addition to getting feedback from our users, we can also get feedback from our peers. Doing so also helps us improve our design work too.
Getting feedback from other designers in the industry isn’t difficult these days. There are many places to turn to, to get that to happen. From community sites like Dribbble to dedicated online critiquing sites and forums such as Please Critique Me and Reddit’s r/design_critiques subreddit (which has over 9,700 readers), we have a lot of opportunities in our grasps for obtaining peer-feedback on our work.
Receiving feedback from our clients, our users, and our peers can be humbling. That’s a good thing.
Staying humble helps keep us on a dedicated and continual path towards improving and learning our craft with unending drive and passion.
If we become complacent with our creative processes, or if we start to believe that we have pretty much advanced to the top of the game, then we grow stagnant in our abilities and we stop pushing ourselves to innovate.
Idleness and passivity, being fine with the status quo, is dangerous ground to tread on for anyone in any professional field; but this is even more true in a competitive and fast-moving profession like the web design industry.
Feedback from our users does not pull any punches whatsoever. None at all. There is no sugar coating. Or any attempt at gently and politely giving feedback from a constructive place.
You will often get feedback from a user who is already frustrated about something in your web design that’s broken or that’s preventing them from getting the thing they want done.
That type of user feedback can brutal and raw, but what it is also, is that it is honest. It will contain things you need to hear about your work that other people in other situations will be too polite or too unconcerned to tell you.
True, this type of feedback I’m talking about will more than likely contain some things that you probably don’t need to hear too, but that’s where our work lies: In deconstructing feedback to draw out that which we need to take away from it.
Let me share a story with you, about how user-contributed feedback has helped my freelance design business.
After learning (in a particularly frustrating way) from a client of mine that trying to handle the domain registration and hosting setup for my clients can become a major headache, I ended up deciding to drop that service as part of my web design packages.
Dropping the service of registering my clients’ domain names and setting up their website’s hosting for them didn’t seem like a big deal at first.
However, you should also know that many of my clients are small businesses who have no employees or resources to route towards website administration and management.
So, initially, after this decision was made, we had a lot of problems because our clients were having a tough time with web hosting.
What would happen was they would be overwhelmed with how to find the right web hosting solution for their specific needs.
Or worse.
They would bargain basement shop on web hosting services — thinking that hosting companies were all equal and that the price was the most important distinguishing factor between them — without having a look at what people were saying about the web hosting service they would get. Which, as almost anyone with even basic experience in website administration can tell you, doesn’t always produce the best results.
Oftentimes, my clients would end up with a bad hosting solution on an oversold shared hosting service because all they could see was the price of the service, without knowing to consider the other factors that also matter in choosing web hosts, such as reliability, reputation, features like disk space and bandwidth, and so forth.
So I started directing my clients to helpful online resources like Web Hosting Geeks (a web hosting review site) to help them pick their web hosts.
Reading user-contributed feedback and reviews from other people gave my clients true, unbiased insights about the web hosting solutions they were considering.
Feedback in the form of reviews from actual people or third-party organizations is more reliable and impartial compared to reading about a web hosting company through the company’s own website and marketing team.
Think of how often we turn to user-contributed reviews these days for making purchasing decisions (e.g. via social commerce or our social networks). How many times have you ordered a product off Amazon or downloaded an app on your smartphone without first reading through what some of the existing customers have had to say about it?
I now have fewer clients having trouble with their web hosting because of user-contributed feedback.
User-generated feedback and reviews can relieve freelancers from some burdens in our business processes, and all we have to do is take advantage of them when we can.
The value in receiving feedback lies in its fundamental nature, which is that feedback comes through a different set of lenses.
Trying to see a design of ours without the tinted lens we lovingly tend to view them through is not easy to do.
Users, clients, friends, colleagues, and other people come to look at our designs with a unique set of lenses, and it’s those lenses that will expose the things we may be overlooking in our work.
Let me share another story with you. I once had a user contact me about a navigability issue he was having with a web design I created.
The feedback completely floored me.
Having developed the design, I couldn’t imagine anyone being unclear about how the site’s navigation worked.
But that was because I had put the whole design together, and I knew exactly what to expect and do to move around it. I made the design, and I made it in a way that made sense to me.
I forgot that other people would not be viewing the design through the same lens as I was.
That was a wake-up call.
I had failed to consider another person’s perspective, and it cost me more time to go back in and make the correction.
And that will happen. We will make those sorts of mistakes, and we will fail to consider other people’s perspectives at some point in our design process.
Listening to feedback from others effectively helps us avoid or remedy these types of situations.
Have you ever had moments where getting feedback made all the difference in your web design career? Share it with us in the comments below!
Rob Bowen is half of the dynamic duo behind Arbenting and Dead Wings Designs. He is a freelance designer, writer, and videographer with a focus on the Web. Rob’s new Twitter account is @ArbentMedia.
The post Why Getting Feedback is Vital for Freelance Web Designers appeared first on Six Revisions.
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There are tons of blogs, tutorial sites, and other resources out there that can teach you about web design and development. But what if you want something a little bit more formal, without actually having to go back to school?
That’s where resources like the ones below can come in handy. These sites offer courses modeled after those you’d find (or actually from) leading colleges and universities. They’re a great option if you’re not sure where to start, or if you want to bridge the gaps in your current training.
They can also be excellent options if you’ve taken courses in the past, but want to make sure your knowledge and skill-set is completely up to date.
The Google Developers University Consortium offers a ton of great courses for developers interested in working with Google products. Of course that includes designing and programming for Android, as well as Google Maps, Google App Engine, and more. It also offers more general web technology courses, including an AJAX tutorial, PHP development, and information on GIS and KML.
In addition to using the University Consortium for learning, you can also submit a course, including course materials, assignments, lectures, and projects. The only catch is that it has to be Creative Commons-licensed.
Dev.Opera can help you learn all the latest open web technologies, including JavaScript, CSS3, HTML5, and SVG. In addition to web technologies, Dev.Opera also offers up courses and tutorials on Add-Ons, Mobile, and TV. And of course if you have information to share with the Opera development community, you can submit your own articles.
Lynda.com is one of the largest premium tutorial sites for software, business, and creative topics. They have over 1900 video courses, all by expert teachers. For $25/month, you get unlimited access to all of their courses, making it a good deal for anyone who wants constant access to new learning materials.
Lynda.com’s courses are all mobile-friendly, so you don’t have to be chained to your computer to learn. And you can even create your own custom playlists of the courses you want to watch, which can then be shared with others (of course, they’ll need their own Lynda.com account to watch those videos). Lynda.com does offer a free 7-day trial, so you can test the waters before you commit.
Don’t Fear the Internet is a little different from other resources on this list. It covers basic HTML and CSS, but was specifically created for non-web designers, and is instead aimed at creatives in general.
So far there are seven lessons, covering typography, targeting content, CSS, developer tools, HTML, and even a basic primer on the internet. Every lesson is delivered in video format, but with text notes you can easily refer to later.
P2PU’s School of Webcraft is a peer-powered learning environment that’s backed by Mozilla. It’s all completely free, and you can take individual courses or complete beta challenges to test your current knowledge.
Current courses offered include basics like choosing web hosting or a text editor, as well as more advanced topics like Coffeescript and PHP. There are even courses offered in Spanish. And like most resources of its kind, you can create and submit your own courses, too.
Codecademy lets you interactively learn to code, all for free. There are courses for everything from basic HTML to JavaScript to Ruby and other more complex programming languages.
The nice thing about Codecademy is its incredibly interactive nature. Every single lesson includes an interactive element that helps you retain the information you’ve learned. This is a big deal for those who learn by doing, rather than just by reading or listening.
In addition to standard courses, Codecademy also has a strong community where you can join groups to code with others, as well as profiles that let you show off badges and progress.
Code School is another online learning environment that stresses learning by doing. They offer “Paths” that give you a clearcut list of courses you should take to learn different disciplines. there are paths for Ruby, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, and iOS. They also offer “Electives”, which cover topics outside of the basic Paths, including Git, R, and Chrome DevTools.
Code School offers both free and premium courses, with the most basic courses generally offered for free. And of course, you don’t have to follow the pre-defined Paths if you’d prefer to strike out on your own.
Udacity offers up courses in a number of technology and design related areas. There are classes on web development, HTML5 game development, programming languages, interactive 3D graphics, and even topics like building a startup.
The courses are free, and are all highly interactive. Video lectures are bite-sized, meaning you can learn at your own pace without having to sit through hours of someone speaking. And of course all the instructors are industry leaders, so you’re learning from the best.
Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby is one of the best free Ruby courses online. It’s funny, easy to follow, and has great illustrations and comic strips included that really help drive the concepts home.
Udemy offers courses from leading instructors around the world. A lot of the courses offered are tech- and design-focused, though there are also some great courses about startups and other topics.
Udemy also lets you teach your own courses, and earn money doing so. Courses range in price from only a few dollars right up to hundreds, depending on the subject, instructor, and length. There are even some free courses, though you might have to dig to find them.
Skillfeed is a relatively new offering from Shutterstock. They offer a paid monthly subscription (just $19/month) to access courses, though there’s a 7-day free trial as well.
Courses are focused on technical and creative skills, and there are also “Skill Snacks” that offer up quick tips and tricks that you can learn in just a few minutes. Skillfeed video classes can be accessed from your desktop, laptop, or mobile device, too, so you can learn anywhere.
Treehouse offers a huge library of step-by-step video courses and tutorials for a variety of in-demand technologies. You can learn to build websites and web apps, mobile apps, or even how to start a business.
There are currently over 1000 videos in the library, with more being added all the time to keep you up-to-date. As you complete courses, you’ll earn badges you can proudly display on your profile to show your achievements. And each course has interactive elements to make it easier for you to retain the information you learn.
Pricing ranges from $25-$49/month, depending on which plan you choose. The more expensive Gold plan gives you access to feedback on your projects, as well as additional information and workshops.
Coursera offers courses on a huge number of subjects, including a robust catalog of information, tech, and design courses. Courses in these subject areas include topics like social media, data science, creativity, innovation, metadata, digital democracy, and much more. Courses are offered on a regular basis, and are done more like a traditional college with weekly lessons and assignments. Each course runs from just five or six weeks up to 19 weeks or more.
The Tuts+ Network has been a leader in design and technology tutorials for years, with both free and premium resources. Now, their Tuts+ Premium Courses give a more formal educational environment for learning about some of your favorite topics. There are courses on everything from parallax scrolling in web design to jQuery to web application design. Most courses run a dozen to two dozen lessons, though there are some that fall outside of those parameters.
Courses are available to all Tuts+ Premium members (who also get the benefit of hundreds of tutorials and 73 ebooks, as well as weekly new content). Tuts+ Premium membership is $19/month (or $15/month if you pay yearly). They do offer two free courses if you want to try it out: 30 Days to Learn HTML and CSS, and 30 Days to Learn jQuery.
Timothy Training offers tutorials for a number of web technologies and programs, including Dreamweaver, HTML and CSS, PHP, MySQL, and more. They also offer live training and even on-site training.
OpenLearn is the online home of the free courses from The Open University. They offer courses on a huge variety of subjects, including technology and design. The Design and Innovation category has some great courses that would be of interest to a web designer, including Design in a Nutshell, while the Computing and ICT category has more technical courses, including classes on open source, Google, design thinking, and more.
iTunes U is probably one of the better known online educational portals out there, with courses from some leading educational institutions around the world. They offer courses designed by schools, colleges, universities, and other organizations from around the world.
Courses can be found by searching or browsing, as well as by looking through the top-rated charts. There are even topical collections put together by top institutions. There are a number of courses and collections aimed at designers and developers, including Developing Apps for iOS, iOS Game Development, Talking Design, and Creative Media. iTunes U can be accessed through any iOS device. Educators also have the option to create their own courses.
Academic Earth offers free courses from colleges around the world in a variety of subjects, including Introduction to Visual Thinking, Building Dynamic Websites, and Computer Graphics. Lessons are presented in video format.
Courses offered through Academic Earth are presented by institutions including Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Columbia University, Cornell University, Indian Institute of Technology, MIT, and more.
KillerPHP.com was created to teach practical PHP skills to web designer types, rather than developers. They offer up video tutorials on PHP and MySQL. You can subscribe for just $29 for 3 months or $99 for 12 months, or purchase courses individually.
WebDesign.com approaches online learning a bit differently than most of the other sites listed here. Instead of letting you simply watch video lessons on your own time, they offer live, interactive webinars. Webinars are also included in their video training library, which subscribers have complete access to.
They offer some live webinars for free (mostly on non-technical subjects), while others are only available to members. Membership is $197 for a full year, which includes access to the full library as well as their library. Monthly and yearly subscriptions to just the live webinars are also available, for $47 and $97 respectively.
If you’re interested in learning web standards, then the Web Standards Curriculum, offered by W3C, is a great place to start. It covers everything from web design standards to HTML to CSS, and even has information on JavaScript, accessibility, mobile web development, and SVG.
They also include resources aimed at teachers, with additional references, teaching materials, and project activities.
Regardless of what you want or need to learn, you’ll almost certainly find what you’re looking for at one of the sites above. They’re a nice way to educate yourself without the cost of a formal education, but with more direction than just randomly surfing tutorials.
Have you used any of the resources above? Or did we miss any you think should have made the list? Let us know in the comments.
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This design resource freebie — containing 1,000 free vector icons — is the biggest free icon set that Six Revisions has ever released.
This freebie comes in three formats:
This freebie was created exclusively for the Six Revisions readers to enjoy by Freepik.com — a search engine that helps graphic and web designers find high quality photos, vectors, illustrations, and PSD files for their creative projects.
Freepik.com is a search engine that helps graphic and web designers locate high quality photos, vectors, illustrations and PSD files for their creative projects. Born in early 2011, it tracks and locates free graphic content on the Internet and displays the results in an orderly layout for easy access. Freepik.com is on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
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