Is WordPress killing web design?

censuspro

I'm not a designer, however I have used designers on a number of occasions. I recently git this website developed/designed (i'm happy with the results but you might think otherwise). I bought a pagelines WP theme because I liked the design and then I got a developer to finish it for me and all within a reasonable budget. The other option was to hire one designer to come up maybe two or three designs pay twice or three times more for a website that I may or may not like.

With WP platforms like pagelines so readily available and more flexible, bearing in mind clients expectations along with the costs associated with custom made websites, is WP killing web design?

BarackPyjama

It's killing off the bedroom web design industry, yes. No bad thing.

tricky D

Getting a WP site up with its template is only part of the design puzzle. Using WP can remove a lot of legwork. However it is primarily a blogging framework. While it has evolved beyond that mere function, it is nevertheless a framework. Once you want functions that are outside of that frame or tackling other issues which can never be provided for within that frame, it can't provide solutions to those issues. Design still has a huge role in solving those extra issues.

Bear in mind the review I did for you. There's design issues in that which are beyond what WP can cover.

Very roughly:
Copyrighting.
Psychology and the understanding of cues.
Colour theory.
Information provision and layout issues.
Legal issues.
Typefacing.
SEO keyword and phrase issues.
Marketing functions.
Error handling issues (sometimes requiring server knowledge).
Site admin issues.

These are design issues generally beyond WP and there are many more.

I'd half agree with BP, it is killing off of the bedroom industry to some extent and making some changes to the design landscape. However at the same time, it is further lowering the entry barriers which brings in a different raft of entry level designers, self-providers or bedroomers who just switch to using frameworks. The upshot is that most of the design issues remain.

There's also the new opportunities for those designing WP templates, modules, plugins, etc..

Trojan

Interesting question.

It's certainly having an effect, but for me that effect is making good designs more affordable to the general public with availability of high quality themes that are being reused on multiple sites, e.g. the pro themes on ThemeForest for $35, WooThemes, etc. They still need to be configured and sometimes customised, which can be more tricky than at first appearance and there is still a lot of work involved in adding functionality with available plugins or custom coding.

The market for high quality *custom* design is still there, except many designers now need to be more aware of how their designs will end up functioning as a theme, or even learning how to code it. And as mentioned above, a huge market for custom plugin coding.

I'm biased as I teach people how to build their own WordPress websites, but I think that it has done wonders for the web industry and is killing the cowboy and low quality end of the market.

censuspro

It's interesting reading the feedback on here and the opinions of designers over on creativeireland.com. When I posted the project for my website and how it was a pagelines theme and that I just needed someone to customise it for me, I had to delete the post because of all the bad feedback I was getting and how I was "devaluing the industry".

tricky D

There is a certain element of removal of value for designers but perhaps devaluing isn't the best description. They possibly aren't selling themselves and the roles of design well enough. There's a transition that many haven't made which involves selling the value of your work. Done properly (and ethically), a client can be persuaded beyond the price objection to employ one designer at twice the price of another because the value proposition is miles ahead.

When web page editors first came out, some might have viewed that development as a threat. It sure didn't work out that way. Same for many other developments. Besides with these kinds of changes, the trick is to seek the opportunities. Change happens in this industry, all the time. No point in moaning about it, though people do. There's a funny old story I vaguely remember which goes something like this: the BBC changed their site design say 8/9 years ago and sought feedback. Loads of complaints followed giving out about how the design they loved so much was being dumped. The Beeb saved these for posterity. Years alter, they made another change and much of the feedback was the same kinds of complaints from the same people.

littlemac1980

I haven't done any coding for years, when I was in college we mainly did C, C++, Java, and HTML. A couple of years later dreamweaver arrived. I messed around with it for a while, it was very useful and user friendly, and allowed lots of people not interested in learning the fundamentals of good programming and design to develop working webpages without having to learn a language or how to test/debug at a code level. I haven't looked at Wordpress yet. I might check it out now I've decided to get back into software development. I don't expect it could ever be a substitute for the pleasure/challenge of coding.

So I think that the true value and test of design is to be able to generate something unique and functional. Wordpress I would guess is capable of delivering on the functionality (within thematic limits) but by its nature, it could never replace unique design, and for designers, willing to put time and effort into their art, and with a thorough understanding of interface design etc. it probably isn't capable of doing what they require. So that's why I voted no.

Trojan

littlemac1980 wrote: »

Wordpress I would guess is capable of delivering on the functionality (within thematic limits) but by its nature, it could never replace unique design, and for designers, willing to put time and effort into their art, and with a thorough understanding of interface design etc. it probably isn't capable of doing what they require.

WordPress is capable of displaying any HTML & CSS combination you care to give it - so it is by definition capable of what any designer/developer can hand-code. However, integrating that with the CMS capabilities can be a lot of work, particularly depending on what the design requirements dictate.

CptSternn

Facebook is killing off web design more than WordPress.

But again, it is only killing off crappy sites that no one was planning on paying for to be developed anyway.

jmcc

Trojan wrote: »

The market for high quality *custom* design is still there, except many designers now need to be more aware of how their designs will end up functioning as a theme, or even learning how to code it. And as mentioned above, a huge market for custom plugin coding.

Wordpress really started out as a blogging platform and I regularly see it being pressed into service as a CMS. In this it is creating a bit of a niche between the large scale CMSes that are needed for large websites and the SME type CMSes. There is another aspect to the rise of Wordpress in that it makes a website somewhat more interactive for the owner (not necessarily the web developer).

I'm biased as I teach people how to build their own WordPress websites, but I think that it has done wonders for the web industry and is killing the cowboy and low quality end of the market.

While I'm no great web developer (some of my designs have been known to make grown webdevs cry ) I agree that Wordpress has improved the industry to some extent. The cowboy element is always going to be there but at least with Wordpress (or Joomla), the HTML and CSS is more spiderable by search engines and more readable by humans. One of the things that crops up on Webdev forums is the use of Dreamweaver and its nature as a production tool rather than a design tool. Wordpress is, to a similar extent, becoming a production tool for webdevs in that they can produce reasonably well designed sites quickly. The danger from the cowboy element and some webdevs is that they don't bother to change the titles, keywords and descriptions (the SEO data).

I run a web survey of Irish websites every month and while not all Irish websites are active, Wordpress and Joomla are represented in the active websites count.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

CptSternn wrote: »

Facebook is killing off web design more than WordPress.

This, I take it, is just your opinion rather than something supported by facts or statistics? Perhaps it is having more of an effect on blogs but then so is Twitter.

But again, it is only killing off crappy sites that no one was planning on paying for to be developed anyway.

The bulk of the web is brochureware. Some people would prefer that it was otherwise but the reality is that when you see those TLDs with millions of domains registered, between 10 and 30% of them might be somewhat developed. Most businesses use the web in the same way that they use print advertising and will update their websites only once a year, if that.

Regards...jmcc

cormee

It's probably having more of an effect on web development than on web design. I've used WordPress on projects many times over the last few years and I've yet to run into a situation where there isn't a plugin already existing for the functionality I need.

From a design point of view, I always give the homepage the whole design process, wireframe > concepts > refinements etc and WordPress powers the subsections.

Web design is as much about productivity as it is about creativity. It's such a well coded piece of software and what with the massive amount of plugins and great support/community behind it there are very few reasons not to use it.

BarackPyjama

cormee wrote: »

It's such a well coded piece of software

WordPress is well coded? I'd have to beg to differ there. The fact that the logic is in the templates instead of using a decent MVC framework is scary enough in itself. Never mind the fact that every odd week we hear of another WordPress hack, the logic for structuring permalinks, URL's generation, user permissions model, version control model, etc.

All in all I'd say, as CMS's go, WordPress was an absolute dog.

matt-dublin

love the almost exact replica of the apple website!!!

kdaly100

The question was is Wordpress killing design. The answer to any such question is no.

Good design will always be appreciated and paid for. A well designed WP site can look really well. The Oxegen site is WP and looks well for instance. CLearly revognisable as a WP sie but nevertheless outside of the design community who can tell.

Wordpress and many other CMS meet a need. Prer-paid themes meet a need, custom themes meet a need. Excellent design meets a need as well.

Personally think the PAgelimes themes loook pretty poor