Press release: Web design in Macedonia 2004 (analysis)
Professional
website design/development, multimedia and marketing solutions
Web design
Macedonia (1999 - 2004)
From the early days where the Internet was a luxury in Macedonia
up to now the situation has not changed a lot. There is some
progress but the situation is not satisfying at all. Macedonia
is still far behind Europe by iCulture and standards. There
are very few professionally made websites and very few services
are offered online. Compared with the situation for example
in Bulgaria where Internet is getting more and more in peoples
everyday life and the quality of the websites is constantly
increasing.
The main problem in Macedonia remains the low quality
problem. Design studios appear and disappear over night.
Web design services are offered as cheese on a country market.
On the other hand the people responsible for the companies
image have not realized the potential and the power of the Internet
yet. They have websites just because everybody else has. Their
web sites are just an address on a visit card, company brochure
or some other "offline" corporate marketing material. There
are just a few websites that have a good design accommodated
to the corporate image and are used properly to present the
company to the world wide web audience. Still the design is
simple and doesn't follow the W3C standards.
The web
design market in Macedonia
Unfortunately like in the most not so developed countries
in Europe, we are witnessing a situation where due to the poor
understanding of web technology and standards among the CEOs,
marketing and PR executives in the companies, we see website
designs where we can say that there is not even a bit of
web design. Macedonia has the same situation. "One day"
web designers who just got their hands on HTML and PhotoShop
and made their first personal website, claim to be professional
web designers. Macedonian companies often hire such designers
to create their image on the web.
There are very few companies that can deliver a good or so-so
web site design solution. The problem is that this solutions
is a stand alone web design or should I simply call it graphical
design for the web. This is something that looks professional
but is not optimized on content to deliver a certain message
to the target audience, has no marketing or PR value and poor
search engine saturation.
What is web design?
Web design can be referred as visual information design.
Something that helps sending your message to the audience using
text, pictures, shapes, colors, information architecture,
sound, motion and emotion. Web designers define
the way that information is transmitted to the target audience
incorporating the existing image or creating a new one. The
good web design professionals (referred as: web designers) are
people who have a good understanding on the way the Internet
works, the technologies that make it work, the environment,
artistic talents, design capabilities, knowledge in programming
languages and other web technologies. But not to forget that
in order to create a web design masterpiece the web design professionals
must have some knowledge in web/user psychology, branding, user
experience and some marketing skills.
The web design
process overview
When creating a web page the professional designer goes through
a process where he defines the key elements of the web site
design. This process enables the designer to create the information
architecture of the site, the navigation based on common user
instincts, idea of the expected impression when a site is viewed
and other vital elements that influence the final outcome and
success of the site. Then when this "homework" is done the designer
has to select the main technologies and techniques that would
be used to materialize the site. There are many "rules" and
factors that should be considered like: different browsers,
screen resolution, platform, third party components (players,
java support), language support, search engine visibility and
placement and many other tings that make the decisions complex
but increase the final outcome's success. Finally comes the
part when he is actually designing the site in the most primitive
meaning of design, putting colors and shapes together. Here
he incorporates carefully selected colors, shapes and content
to maintain the branding of the company or organization. There
are many other things that need to be mentioned as parts of
the web design process but are not listed here.
Web design in Macedonia ( The Balkan Interpretation )
Unlike developed countries the Macedonian way of web design
is often interpreted as putting the company logo as a background
some big bolded texts and a no-concept page. All the elements
listed above in the "What is web design?" paragraph are
just missing. Web sites of big and serious companies look like
amateur personal pages "Hi this is my website... I like Britney
Spears..".
Why cheap web design services aren't good enough even in
Macedonia?
The consumer's psychology is not much different from the
one the company's executives have. People go as crazy for what's
cheap or free in this case cheap web design services offered
in Macedonia. There is a saying that "We are not reach enough
to buy cheap thing.". When someone offers to make a full corporate
site (web design, development and hosting) for 100-150 euro
something is just not right. As first this money is just not
enough to pay for a good hosting and make a properly target
audience research. Not to talk for copyright materials that
should be used to empower the web design of the site, that according
to the price will be in most cases pictures or content stolen
from other web sites illegally. This way not only the web designer
can have legal problems but the company itself. The problem
with intellectual property in Macedonia is something that must
be solved in the next year or two otherwise we will be witnessing
a situation where almost everybody is taking more or less from
others and making a living out of it. The same will be with
web designers... Why matter to create an unique design for a
web page when you can take it from somewhere else, will the
Macedonian web space consist of pale imitations of other web
designers work, only time will show.
"Web design in Macedonia 2004 (analysis)"
- an article by: Goce Bonev
- Creative Director at
HAOS.MULTIMEDIA
Macedonia
This text is part of the Client Resource
Network (CRN) and as such is an exclusive property of HAOS.MULTIMEDIA
and can not be copied or used as a whole or parts of it in any
other way without written permission.
Last modified: 27.01.2005
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