rhyzz:

i don't thnk you have seen portfolios on Nigerian companies that provide web services. Visit this site and view their portfolio. www.mooreadvice.com

mooreadvice uses someone else's work a pre-built application. looking at some of the client's many were no longer working. and some also i noticed they used some else's work raphael or something. so this is disqualified


original and authentic works

@ first poster

I'm sorry, I have not seen anything special in all the links you've drops as something to lookup too. I'm sure you haven't seen any real designer or ur just making lame ass generalizations.

I've been desiging websites for 7years in Naija. But I'm quite busy to list sites or send any portfolio. Even with the bandwidth restrictions we still make wow! designs. I've designed over 55 websites with atleast 20 classics in the past 7years.

Get your facts right!!!!!

@ POSTER,

well, lets look @ this from a brighter perspective ---- Pros where once[b] Amateurs[/b] b4 they became Pros right or right ?  

No flash cool website

www.codixel.com

I am amazed to read the starter of this thread using "Flash Heavy sites" as a yardstick . My enphasis is on the word, "Flash Heavy". If by design and with full awareness of the meaning of those words, you go ahead to make sites "flash heavy", then you really dont know much about the topic of which you are engaging in.

1) Those sites that you listed, take sooo long to load that serious minded people who are looking for info, would have left your sites before they finish loading.

2) Do you have any slightest idea about S.E.O? Search Engine Optimisation? Cause if you have any slightest idea of what it means, you would be really bothered that the sites that you create for clients are not measuring up in that area and unless they have money for serious advertising, it would be very difficult for search engines to list them.

3)Its only kids and new comers to the web and online business, that are thrilled by flashy content. If you must do flash, reduce it to banners or image headers of sites thereby getting a good mixture of aesthetics and usability as well as S.E.O(This you are supposed to know being an online marketing company).

Not everyone can wait for twenty seconds for any of your sites to load. And like I said, its only kids and new comers to the business that will stay for that amount of time admiring your animations. What about databased applications that do realtime processing?
You mentioned Union bank as one of the bad bank sites but what about access bank and UBA and GTB? are they not handled by nigerians? Or do you expect banking sites to be a mess of flashing things with no room for functionality and usability? Banks are not music sites or model sites so why would they go that line? Even check bank sites in The states and elsewhere around the world. The empasis is on usability and sites that validate.

I dont understand why the people who are answering you are bothering to send you their portfolio as u demanded. There is really no point in that and its childish.

@Webworks, Please as someone pointed out, increase those fonts .They can hardly be read. The site may look nice from afar but it may not sell you many jobs? My little advice.

@abbywax

Empty barrel, Top webmasters and programmers all around the world do not have to show off on a forum like this. You probably wont go farther than u are right now.

This is a process and we are getting there. This is fantastic! I'm a Nigerian and I know how Nigerians react when they are challenged. You guys may hate me now, but those of you who are intelligent will realize that I am being constructive.

For those of you who think Flash has no place on the web see:

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

and http://www.neostream.com/ ( one of the top multimedia studios in my opinion).


You see in other countries internet download speeds allow users to view "flash heavy" sites (some users have 2GB broadband connections), so, depending on your target audience you can go silly with flash and video streaming etc.

Anyway, I have begun to see some pretty good sites in this forum and I will list them in my next post.

Why don't we have a BEST DESIGNER IN NIGERIA competion. What do you say guys?

abbywax:

Anyway, I have begun to see some pretty good sites in this forum and I will list them in my next post.

At least you've begun to see otherwise on just Nairaland.

abbywax:

Why don't we have a BEST DESIGNER IN NIGERIA competion. What do you say guys?

Design competitions in my honest opinion are counterproductive. You'll probably get a bunch of narcisstic 'designers' who think too much of their hideous work. Now if you were to stress web usability standards and SEO,

First off, and not to take from this post, for Zahy and Prodgal to reply to the same post in one day? Hmmm, something's amiss

abby,

1) Again, don't just focus on this forum but the community in general

2) Speaking for myself, I don't hate you, but may hate your views

3) I don't think competition is the way to go, personally, especially if you are unwilling to offer any incentives to make it worthwhile

4) I am happy that you have "begun to see some pretty good sites". As I have been saying all along, making generalizations isn't good. Again, I don't think you would be too happy if a south african walked up to you and said, "All Nigerians are yahoo boys". Same difference in this case.

Cheers and thank God you are slowly but gradually watering down your rhetoric

@ poster

Guess you did step on a lot of peoples toes, but just becuase you are now based in damn south Africa does not give you the right to start slagging Nigerians that are struggling to make a leaving off, you are killing them more than helping them.

I am based in the UK, yes flash site is ok here but lets face it, wont you rather create a site using XHTML, CSS and AJAX technology webistes than creating heavy Flash sites?.

I must say that I some how agree with you(cant belief just wrote that), my passport ran out some few weeks back and I decided to go unto the Nigeria consulate Embassy in UK website, and I must confess it was a disgrace, my dog could have desgined a better site. I was so pissed I called the consulate and spoke to the man in charge, and begged him to allow me to re-design the website for free, but he was ignorant and said they have employees that are employed to design and maintain the site.

With regards to heavy flashy site, I really dont know how flash sites are going to hold in the next generation of web 2.0.

rather than slag Nigerians off, may be you can create tutorials (videos) that teach people about web design, and off course it would be waste if there are no computers, software and so on to use for the practice. I must confess its a complex situation, it must start from the top.

Now I am no web designer but I know some Nigerian web designers that are good

check out Walfam http://walfam.com
their portfolio at http://walfam.com/portfolio.html

@my2cents I think you should help by giving some advice on how Nigerian web designers can improve.
Try some articles on the web or a blog or ,

Its not only nigeria, fake designers are everywhere but anyways, there are few nigerian sites that i know that stands out , ofcourse they invested more to it obviously and hired professionals, check this out,


- http://www.mtnonline.com/

- http://www.gloworld.com/

- http://www.lbs.edu.ng/

- http://www.ibrahim-babangida.com/

- http://www.transcorpnigeria.com/home/index.php

- http://www.efccnigeria.org/

By the way the MTN site amongst others where developed by Nigerians, See http://www.taviatech.com.ng/index.asp


The problem we have is advertising, with no yellow pages, how can you see the experts? Nigerians are still marketting by "referals and connections"
Not many of these new fresh bees engage in main stream advertising, obviously due to lack of fund for start ups,

I am sure there are many others out there as the site i just showed you. >> http://www.taviatech.com.ng/index.asp

We just need to do our research well, In developed countries like the US, its a matter of goggling and you see them right away,

@poster
I just went through your sites that make you so proud and realised that you know absolutely nothing. All you did was to get one of those CMS online something more like joomla or drupal.
especially ur itnewsafrica site watever the damn link is.
Pls dont even post anything again
@ all
verify my claim

The quality of your website depends on the usage of the website. If you want a money making website like www.vickywebworld.com then you don't really need to give it some fanciful designs. All you need to do is to do search engine optimization to enable your website rank no 1 on google.


IMAGING A WEBSITE OWNED BY A NIGERIAN RANKS NO 1 IN THE WHOLE WORLD FOR A TERM LIKE

[center]WORLD INTERNET MILLIONAIRE [/center] CHECK IT WWW.GOOGLE.COM

JUST TYPE WORLD INTERNET MILLIONAIRE

In summary, the standard and quality all depends on the aim with which the website was designed.

Ooooh, it seems a large can of worms has been opened here.
From a personal point of view, there must be a simile of truth in the statement if we go by the standard of graphics posted on this website. However we cannot use the above as an indicator of NG web/graphic designers as a whole.
Given the conditions that most have to work with or under, it is a miracle that they produce anything at all in the first place. Another consideration is that one needs to separate the graphically and creatively gifted from the technical heads. The fact that a man/woman knows the ins and outs of Dreamweaver, CSS, HTML, ASP, PHP coupled with Photoshop is no guarantee that he/she will produce an aesthetically pleasing and functional site.
It might be better to conclude that creativity is limited and this is mainly due to a lack of exposure, the more diverse sites an individual gazes upon the more the creative juices are stimulated and ultimately the creative experience is heightened

please checkout www.weblandconcepts.com

Whao! That is a lot of post and I almost did not get through all of them, but I did. Before I say anything, let me say 1 or 2 things about myself. I'm a Nigerian in Diaspora, I have certifications in web design and development, I was trained by the largest bank in the world to initially develop and now manage websites. I've managed over 10 website development and these are very transactional website: they sit on the bank infrastructure backbones.

Why all the noise above, just because I want people to have an idea of where I am coming from. Now with that said, to the main point. I both agree and disagree with Abby. I agree with is point on the fact that the 'visible' websites from Nigeria are not all that much but I disagree that all Nigerians are amateur. Many contributors have provided reasons supporting both arguments so I will add my 2 cents.

I know other Nigerians who work on award winning websites but cannot advertize that because they are not supposed to. I cannot advertize the work I've done - though our site won award 2 global awards 3 years running - because I'm bound by my contract to the bank. I know of Nigerians in other banks as well who are in the same shoes. We have Nigerians at the fore front of some of the best websites in the world.

Now to the Nigerian issues, developing a website is an art and a science. The sciense part is what you get when you go to school and learn how to use HTML, Flash, WebSphere and all the works, the art - which is the difficult part - comes from processes and procedures that are unique to organizations and the desired user experience. For example, before I even think of putting together a structure for a website, I would have had to look at the audience community, the infrastructure available for delivery, the desired performance of the site, the content of the site. What size of font will be good across all the browsers, what speed do I want, how heavy should each page be, where is my user community, do they read from left to right or from top to bottom, how many clicks do I desire to the farthest link on the site, how will the workflow be? what pixel is the site to be designed for, how will my images behave using this pixel points.

The above and many other are some of the questions that must be answered before you even fire up your dreamweaver. My experience with folks back home is that they fire up the dreamweaver first and then try to get the art done with time. While that will eventually work, it makes the initial work seem amateurish and not well-planned.

The good news is that the web community in Nigeria is picking up speed and steam and with encouragement, resolution of some of the infrastructural issues - bandwidth, IXP, NEPA, websites developed in Nigeria by Nigerians will stand to compete with any website from anywhere in the world.

If I can shock some Nigerian designers into improving their standards then I have achieved my goal. It wasn’t my intention to hurt anyone but sometimes only your brother can tell you that “your mouth dey smell”.

Look at the following sites and please tell me what you think-

http://www.akwaibomstategov.com/

http://www.nigeria.gov.ng/

http://www.rsust.edu.ng/

http://www.unionbankng.com/

http://www.gakpabio2007.com/


I may sound arrogant but …. Naija designers how far These are not mai-mai companies, these are govt departments and multinational banks' websites. Where áre the Nigerian designers if the offical Nigerian Government website looks like it was designed in MSWord.

I want the top designers in Nigeria to stand up and be counted. Advertise yoursleves now and let people know who you are and where to find you.

Na wah o! this guy has really finished us. Look at all the dirty Nigerian sites he listed. Well I wouldn't
say its your fault and that is because corruption is so much in Nigeria that our government officials will
not give web contract to competent Nigerians. I don't want to mention how many times my company has
approached various government parastatals.

Anyway I dare you to say that my site http://bisomart-ng.com is not good enough. Its pure flash website
and also corporate too. I leave you to comment. At least this is purely and proudly Nigerian
, but I must say that the title of your thread is very wrong. How can you say "All" na wah o!

see http://www.astrosoccer.com/  http://rolatirade.com done those two long time and I think they are still cool.
Have a few yet to be uploaded 'cause I haven't been paid fully 

Other cool and proudly Nigerian sites:

http://ruggedmanonline.com (will blow your mind). The designer is my friend contact me if you want to meet him

Well here are a few sites to look at, www.theyokefellows.org , www.winyhomes.com, www.mekusmerahconcept.com.

A competition would be a way for the best of the best to gain international exposure and once and for all change the perception that we are only good at 419 (Lol).

The competition categories could be:

1. Aesthetics

2. HTML/CSS Coding Quality: (We could use W3C standards to validate the sites. See: http://validator.w3.org/ )

3. Innovative use of new technology: (blogging, Wikis, RSS/XML feeds, Social Networking, Podcasting, Vodcasting, Mobizines etc.)

4. Usability, Heuristics and Accessibility

5. Business Impact: The website that has made the most impact on a business e.g. increased sales, business leads, brand equity, product promotion, increased page views, unique visits and search engine rankings for relevant keywords.

Its simple- we could build a site for THE BEST DESIGNER IN NIGERIA Awards and display screen-shots linked to the entries, and webmasters around the country could vote for the best site.

Motivation – lets stop being shortsighted (money, money, money) if you are recognized as the best web designer by your peers, you will not lack clients – and who knows, once we get going, some sponsors might be interested.

In future, whenever Banks, Multinationals, Govt. Departments or people like me (who think there are no good designers in Nigeria) are looking for quality designers; they can be refered to this site.

C’mon guys, if we don’t take ourselves seriously and raise the bar, no one else will, and Nigerian companies will continue to engage US and UK companies to design their websites.

Let us turn my seemingly negative comments into something constructive!!

This thing could start small- and become the equivalent of these awards:

The ADA: http://www.americandesignawards.com/

Web Design Awards: http://www.websitedesignawards.com/

The IMA: http://www.interactivemediaawards.com/winners/2006/top10sites.asp

The Cannes Lions Awards: http://www.canneslions.com/home/index.cfm

The One Show Awards: http://www.oneclub.org/os/osi/showcase/?year=2007&id=5881


I am not debating or comparing websites anymore because I have achieved my goal. I am passionate about this industry and I don’t want it to become another Nollywood where mediocrity is celebrated.

Anyone who thinks I’m still talking nonsense please send me your ideas.

deb,

There r dirty sites everywhere and these aren't limited to "made in Nigeria" websites. If you looked at my comments above, you will notice that I listed 4 south african websites that aren't exactly up to snuff either.

Do we hv some crappy sites? sure. However, rather than focus on that, we should focus on how to make things better. To that effect, I suggest a brand new thread where we actually come up with solutions, rather than highlighting the problems.

Abbywax, you over-generalized from the onset, and that is why you were being bashed left right and centre. It is indeed not true that there are no competent web designers in Nigeria. There are. As a matter of fact, there are world-class web designers, in Nigeria or who are Nigerians living abroad.

Personally, I dislike using Flash for my designs but love CSS. I can show you just two and I want you to post your critique. Both were coded from scratch using PHP, CSS and love

http://www.web4africa.net (See also http://www.web4africa.com.ng )
http://www.mobileafrica.net

Now post your critique. No be true say Nigerians no dey competent.

please checkout weblandconcepts.com

@ kpizzle

Please kill the animation on your home page. Its driving me insane

@Abbywax

O merciful Director and CEO of this thread, Please check out my personal website and criticize it for the benefit of my improvement. There's not much in it at the moment, and please use soft words cos I'm still an amateur. My dream is to do greater things with web designing and graphics in the very near future. Cheers

www.kemjisuper.faithweb.com

well i don't have much to say on this matter but i think u i agree in the sense of most nigerians are not taking this web site or the development of a thing seriously in the case of amateurs web designers i believe most of them are side trackers i mean not accepting web design as a proffession, just because the y believe there is money in it so they will design off standard, content for 15k or lesser,

as for me i specialize in web designing on a professional level, i just want u to see what i got www.bolajimedia.com

or www.bolajimediaworks..com

Thank u

@Topic

Still think we Nigerians are not professional? Check out http://www.maviscomputel.com

Cheers

@ my2cents

I like your suggestion. You can start the thread

deb,

I think I have done my part big time:

1) I have contributed to 100s of posts on NL

2) I launched www.webmastersofafrica.com (full of tips, newsletters, etc - many pple have told me that clients are contacting them via the site)

3) I chat, even when at work, with lotz of pple from the webmasters/programmers forum, daily.

4) I try to practice what I preach by putting up sites I have done for review.

I will yield to someone else, preferably someone already in Nigeria, to start that thread as quite frankly, the solutions will benefit them moreso than myself. Once the thread is launched, trust me, I will contribute.

Thanks,

You know I actually clicked on this thread hoping to be impressed and to see that my compatriots are doing what they ought to be doing. But it seems I have to agree with abby----Nigerian Web Designers ARE Amateurs--- if not all then at least 98%.

These folks seem to think its about how much Java code they use or how many dancing animations they have on their websites. I've clicked on every single link proferred and all I see is work that is at best as good as a high school students efforts.

People just keep putting up sites here to tell us :" Kai, I'm a BAAAAD guy" because they successfully implemented three lines of someone elses code or loaded a site with so much flash that it blinds the rest of us.

Even the so called oyibo sites who use flash in their websites use in sparingly because it's hard to SEO flash sites for search engines like Google. We really need to get rid of this culture of celebrating mediocrity and realize "when we no just dey try". Someone was listing examples of corporate websites and was shouting "Glo" and " MTN". When you think of the level these corporate entities represent and you look at their counterparts elsewhere you'll find those sites are just average.Compare the MTN South Africa website and the MTN Nigeria one and you'll see the difference in layout, readability and content. The next thing you know some idiots come out and give people "Best Websites In Nigeria". Nigerians don't focus on content just overkill, the designers are not interested in user input or accessibility.

I wonder why Nigerians persist in designing heavy flash sites for fellow Nigerians when they know broadband density is low in the country Even oyibo wey get "click and go" Internet connection no dey overdo flash sites like we dey do.

@ my2cents
guy i beg chop nockle, i dey like d way u dey yarn, i 4 like make we dey robb minds, hope u dont mind, dis is my email soulzstar@gmail.com.

l beg anytime u need chop nockle just leme kno i go just stretch my hands