All Web Designers In Nigeria Are Amateurs

Has abby got you guys confused or are you guys confusing yourself. What does it take to be a pro? she na your flash or na your code or na your navigation. Most of the people that have posted their sites on this topic might not have cool sites and all but you just can't say their sites are not professional or they are not pros. Wetin dey the STONEWALL+ site sef? tell me. she na flash. e don finish. is that site professional? is it? compare stonewall.co.za to microsoft.com tell me which is more professional despite the fact that there is little or no animations on microsofts site. TRUE we neva reach the level wey south africa dey for web design but that does'nt make us amateurs. its like comparing south african designers to american designers. e possible? ok compare www.stonewall.co.za to www.2advanced.com tell me what you think. all the things abby dey talk na pure STORY. Professionalism is not about having flashy sites. Flashy sites are just flashy like the name applies. No come dabaru our head for here.

TO ADD I NO BE WEB DESIGNER BUT I KNOW ABOUT A GOOD WEBSITE WHEN I SEE ONE AND ITS NOT JUST ABOUT CHILDISH ANIMATION, ITS ABOUT HOW RELEVANT THE SITE IS FOR ITS PURPOSE.SEE LASU WEBSITE ITS NOT THAT FLASHY BUT IT DOES THE JOB,I.E U CAN CHECK your RESULT,REGISTER ONLINE,ETC AND ALL THESE AS MADE LIFE VERY EASY AND CONVENIENT FOR  US STUDENT, YES IT MIGHT NOT BE THE BEST WEBSITE IN THE WORLD BUT CALLING THE GUY THAT MADE THE SITE AN ARMATURE IS AN INSULT, WHAT ABOUT www.whogobuy.com,www.enownow.com,jambonline.com etc ALL THESE SITE WERE MADE BUY NIGERIANS AND WE ARE PROUD OF THEM,

YES Oh-  my intention was to cause controversy because I wanted Nigerians to read my post (lol). My primary goal however was to make Nigerian webmasters ask themselves the question “Am I the best I can be or am I a local champion?” Some people called me a broke, arrogant, a-hole, and funny enough, some disagreed with me in public and then sent personal emails to me saying it was about time someone spoke up about the low standards in Nigeria!

This process has been an emotional rollercoaster for me because I am a very proud Nigerian and I was attacked personally for having the audacity to discuss Nigerian issues from another country- but like I said before, sometimes only your brother can say to you- “your mouth dey smell”.

I still stand by the following:

1.   Nigerian designers in general should up-their-game.

2.   You don’t have to design Flash Heavy sites (remember bandwidth restrictions in Nigeria) to be good designers – you can design clean, elegant, uncluttered         CSS/html sites. (see: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/category/showcase/ ).

3.   The Nigerian economy has nothing to do with creativity.

4.   Nigerian designers should benchmark themselves against international sites and stop thinking “local”. (I think http://www.digitalthread.com/webdesign/ is a good resource).

5.   A website is essentially a marketing vehicle and designers should apply traditional marketing principles to website design and development.

6.   I think Flash is fantastic but designers must take their target audience into account. If you are designing for an affluent audience that has access to broadband internet then Flash is cool, otherwise use as little Flash as possible.

7.   You can make Flash SEO friendly by coding a linked XML file for spiders. This XML file can even be updated dynamically (Google:  Flash + SEO).

8.   Nigeria needs a National design competition to unearth the best of the best.


I also challenged Nigerian web designers to prove me wrong by posting their portfolios on this forum- and I was referred to some excellent sites:-

•   http://ruggedmanonline.com/ (This website really made me sit up and take notice. My brother YOU ARE TOO MUCH!!)   
•   http://www.webworksent.com/ (despite slight usability issues)
•   http://www.webmastersofafrica.com/ (not for aesthetic quality but for Information Architecture)
•   http://www.taviatech.com.ng/index.asp ( Elegant site - just a few image optimization issues)

The rest were SHOCKING in my opinion.

I also shared the following Resources:

•   http://www.smashingmagazine.com
•   http://www.smashingmagazine.com/category/showcase/
•   http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/checklist.htm
•   http://www.digitalthread.com/webdesign/

Cool sites (in my opinion) that I have been involved with:

•   http://www.millerway.co.za/
•   http://www.grahambeckwines.com/ 
•   http://www.netevolution.co.za
•   http://www.itnewsafrica.com/ (based on WordPress)
 

Other cool sites that I have found on the net:

•   http://www.neostream.com/
•   http://www.peroniitaly.com/za/age.html



To those of you who said I was broke and arrogant, you are probably broke and arrogant yourselves so no yawa.

To those who dissed my views and not me, you are my brothers and sisters and I look forward to having lunch with you very soon in Naija. (there’s no place like home).

To those of you who crucified me in public and agreed with me in private emails– have the courage to speak your mind!


Cheers!!

That does not mean the citizens of Nigeria should not explore their own creativity.

Flash is being talked about everywhere even the best of foreign IT magazines
exhault flash.

Nigerians let me assure you that things could only get better. Our bandwidth now
is not as it used to be. I want to encourage all the creative Nigerians to maximize
their God given talent and come out with creative flash sites.

Personally my target is to create a better site than www.2advanced.com and I know
I will get there very soon.

check my site again http://biosmart-ng.com its a flash based sites and the download
time is not bad at all. "Its a world class" says a white friend who is also a web designer.
Not that I dont know myself sha

Hey, you're not Abbywax.

sorry,  its
www.mrsgroupng.com

was in a hurry,

Not all nigerian sites are bad (although i have seen a few terrible ones) some are actually quite good.
Check out

http://www.tsiholdings-nig.com/
http://www.superior-equipment.com/
http://www.avantecp.com/
http://www.amgpetroenergy.com/
http://www.bluefinnigeria.com/

to mention a few.
That said i do agree that a lot of Nigerian designers are quite poor and should up the standard.

problem is creating the demand; that's what will drive innovation and make the profs come. whatever your definition of profs.

@hanen
That still doesn't qualify as "All".  You can certainly say, "most" but not "all".

The original poster's logic fails courtesy of proof by contradiction.

@olush0la
As my2cents said over and over again, there is no need justifying the original poster's assertions.  Doing so, in my opinion, amounts to us having low self-esteem.  As my2cents said, if you googled for south african websites and you picked your first 10 results at random, at least half of them would be bad.  Of course for someone like me, that wouldn't amount to me passing judgment on the entire South African Web Development sector.

There are bad eggs everywhere.  Rather than insinuate, we should all get together and help each other out so that we can all LEARN something and improve as a result.

well i believe, it depends on the creativity of the designer of the site itself





http://bizkitbizkit.blogspot.com/

This is a joke, and a good topic to get peoples attention I must say, apart from that I don't know what else to say, I mean this guy Abbywax lives in South Africa, OMG.

There is no perfect website every where in the world, you have good and bad, so end of story.

I just see a very sad person here, very sad that to be honest thinks that there is life every where else but Nigeria, please lets pull you down to earth you are in south africa!!! Not the White House.

GBAM! Enough of the flash. Websites should be tasked focused not a graphics competition.

I have recently come to the conclusion, and I stand corrected, that the flash serves a hypnotizing effect on the client.  In other words, the longer the client stares at the flash, the less likely they are to spot the crap that is on their sites.  It might even help the "webmaster" charge more money ("eh, wetin you talk? N1m?  whatever I go pay.  no disturb me.  I dey look this cool animation)