Will Web Designers become obselete?

[stevesy]

Do you think web-building sites will eventually replace web designers?

[Redalien0304]

Nah someone has to maintain the web-site, or some kind of customization for the site they want.

[pqwoerituytrueiwoq]

as someone who makes his own web pages in a text editor, don't like thoes site builders, they always seem lacking; i want full control of my pages

[Buntu Bunny]

as someone who makes his own web pages in a text editor, don't like thoes site builders, they always seem lacking; i want full control of my pages

I agree. They do seem too generic, as though they're trying to appeal to a relatively limited, pre-set audience. More fun to design one's own anyway. :P

[tgalati4]

I think the notion of web page will change over time. It's already happening with apps on mobile phones. I'm not sure what will replace the web page. If you look at music/video we went through several technologies of content delivery until physical media was replaced by streaming to an app. Magazines are going that way as well. Many companies are using social networks to connect with customers--not needing a corporate web page--but using facebook, twitter, etc.

With the growth of cloud services and content management systems, the notion of designing a web page already seems outdated.

[Mikeb85]

Yes and no. Web designers as we know it will become obsolete, replaced by Java-script Ninjas building interactive single page applications that run in your browser.

[iamkuriouspurpleoranj]

People working with coding and/or design skills in the context of some kind of server shoving some kind of content out into the ether for some kind of device to access/interpret will likely exist for some time.

For anything more specific than that, please consult The Essential Prophecies and Horoscopes of Nostrodamus, Vol. I-IV

PS. You will meet a tall dark handsome stranger or amiable blonde with self-esteem issues. You will come into some money. You will be arrested for performing a lewd act. The act in question will be Romeo and Juliet Act I, which was quite racy for its day. In fact, it was considered so racy that no children under the age of 18 were allowed into the Globe theatre to see it unless they were accompanied by a wise-woman. Wise-men were also initially considered by the Privy Council but were ultimately deemed to be in too short supply, then as now.

[PhilGil]

There have been WYSIWYG web page builders available for almost two decades, and the job market for web developers is still strong.

Greater use of pre-built templates may mean less front end work in the future, but the market for back end developers should continue to grow due to the increased polish and functionality expected on modern web pages. Also, no matter how good the site builders get, there will always be clients who want to differentiate themselves by having a custom built site.

[CharlesA]

WYSIWYG web editors make my eyes bleed. I remember using them back when Frontpage was around and now most hosting companies have some sort of template system, but they usually turn the code into garbage. :|

[georgelappies]

For anything more specific than that, please consult The Essential Prophecies and Horoscopes of Nostrodamus, Vol. I-IV

PS. You will meet a tall dark handsome stranger or amiable blonde with self-esteem issues. You will come into some money. You will be arrested for performing a lewd act. The act in question will be Romeo and Juliet Act I, which was quite racy for its day. In fact, it was considered so racy that no children under the age of 18 were allowed into the Globe theatre to see it unless they were accompanied by a wise-woman. Wise-men were also initially considered by the Privy Council but were ultimately deemed to be in too short supply, then as now.

lol, good one :)

[mastablasta]

but joomla, wodpress and drupal etc. not to mention blogger. google sites and such all have some kind of wysiwyg editors for text & pages. it doesn't seem like there is any garbage there.

anyway with tools available it is way easier to have a good site up and running in no time. but then there is always the tweaking, optimisation and personalisation (look and feel).

[Paqman]

Do you think web-building sites will eventually replace web designers?

Nope. Build-your-own-site services and ready-made solutions like Wordpress are targeting a particular segment of the market (bloggers, home users, sole traders and other small businesses, etc). There will always be demand for bespoke sites from bigger customers.

[Paqman]

WYSIWYG web editors make my eyes bleed. I remember using them back when Frontpage was around and now most hosting companies have some sort of template system, but they usually turn the code into garbage. :|

Don't judge all WYSIWYG editors by Frontpage from years ago. Frontpage was always appalling and wrote brain-manglingly bad code. Others like Dreamweaver did much better, and include a lot of useful workflow tools. In fact Dreamweaver was still useful even if you were hand-coding when I used to use it. Things like being able to check and change links site-wide saved a lot of maintaining large sites, and it did nice things like collapsible code blocks too.

[mcduck]

Yes and no. Web designers as we know it will become obsolete, replaced by Java-script Ninjas building interactive single page applications that run in your browser.

You'd still need a designer to make it look and work well. Web designer isn't necessarily (or even usually) the same guy who deals with development of the web site. Different job, and coders who are also skilled in visual & user experience design are not that common. ;)

I'd never let a javascript ninja design the user experience of my company's web site. I'm more than happy to let a coder to do the development part of the job, though... :)

(and no, I don't believe web building sites can replace the need of a personal, designed-for-the-purpose web sites for most cases. They are fine for a limited user type's limited needs but not for much more. Besides, even such sites need somebody to design the ready-made templates for them. )

[Dragonbite]

Do you think web-building sites will eventually replace web designers?

God, I hope not. Those templates are rather... um... uninspiring. Not to mention, good design will stand out. If one stands out, it becomes a template and the next thing you know everybody looks the same, and it no longer stands out.

[Warren Hill]

WYSIWYG web editors make my eyes bleed. I remember using them back when Frontpage was around and now most hosting companies have some sort of template system, but they usually turn the code into garbage. :|

Very true most of them create code that won't pass standards testing too. May display OK in most browsers but you cant do better than a simple text editor.

[Dragonbite]

WYSIWYG web editors make my eyes bleed. I remember using them back when Frontpage was around and now most hosting companies have some sort of template system, but they usually turn the code into garbage. :|

FrontPage added a lot of extra stuff. Vue does too.

I used to use FrontPage for laying things out and hand-coding any of the server-side code in the source-code view. Now, though, I pretty much do it all by source code.

[SeijiSensei]

Remember that a lot of sites include a large amount of code behind the pages that you see. On the sites I have worked on, the visible content is probably only about 10% of the total code. Any decently complicated site is not going to use static HTML pages for its content. It's going to be running an application in something like PHP, Ruby, Python, etc., that handles things like database access and queries, managing cookies, validating user input, and in some cases, interfacing with other back-end systems like company databases. Some content management systems have enough hooks to handle some of these tasks, but in a lot of cases they need to be tailored to the needs of the site owner. I wrote an appointments manager for a health center recently and had to design the system to conform to HIPAA privacy requirements. Pre-packaged site builders cannot handle those kind of requirements.

[CharlesA]

Don't judge all WYSIWYG editors by Frontpage from years ago. Frontpage was always appalling and wrote brain-manglingly bad code. Others like Dreamweaver did much better, and include a lot of useful workflow tools. In fact Dreamweaver was still useful even if you were hand-coding when I used to use it. Things like being able to check and change links site-wide saved a lot of maintaining large sites, and it did nice things like collapsible code blocks too.

Yeah, I've been using Dreamweaver for about a monthish now and so far I'm impressed with it. I rarely use the WYSIWYG part, though.

I was referring more to a web host's "site builders" than anything else. Granted it's been a couple years since I worked on a site for my Aunt, trying to insert an image in the middle of garbage code = nasty, especially when the interface for the site builder didn't have an insert image button.


FrontPage added a lot of extra stuff. Vue does too.

I used to use FrontPage for laying things out and hand-coding any of the server-side code in the source-code view. Now, though, I pretty much do it all by source code.

Sounds like what I do now.

[abhich]

hope that never happens.

[mr john]

Most people only visit a few websites a day.