Why Good Web Designers are like Good Plastic Surgeons

I’ll make a bold statement. Web Designers are like Plastic Surgeons. Well, the good variety are anyway. Sure, they are vastly different occupations. One requires over 10 years of study, the other you can teach yourself. One pays the big bucks and usually comes with a glamorous lifestyle, the other not so much.

There are however, many similarities between the two. A Plastic Surgeon is the artist of the surgical field. A Web Designer is the artist of the online world.

Why a Good Web Designer is like a Good Plastic Surgeon

• You have an eye for detail.
• You love to improve on an original or less satisfying design.
• You consider your job to be producing functioning works of art.
• You’ve got good hand eye-coordination, the mouse is an extension of your hand.
• You like to trim the fat, performing liposuction on your CSS and HTML to get the most concise code.
• You understand that there are many ways to solve the problem but choose what is best for the client.
• You know the right balance between subtle and extreme and know when to stop.
• You appreciate that your end product needs to be loved by the clients because they have to live with it day in, day out.
• You understand that the end product is going to be seen by masses of people.
• An unhappy customer is a reflection on a misunderstanding of requirements.
• Telling someone what is wrong with their existing site is like telling someone how ugly they are as a person. People get offended. You have a knack at suggesting ‘enhancements’ rather than pointing out flaws.
• After your suggestions, you have to tell them realistically how you are going to improve it and make it prettier.
• You can charge what you think your skills are worth, if people agree they will pay it. While the more expensive is most often commensurate with quality, it isn’t always the case.
• You rely heavily on word of mouth referrals.
• If you get negative feedback you take it as a personal attack on your own ability and creativity.
• If people think you’re good they’ll come back to get another makeover on their site, a refresh, more marketing.

Like plastic surgery, once people have a website they can never really stop evolving it. It needs constant changes to keep it fresh and looking modern. You need to keep up with the trends and evolve with them.

This article made the Web Designer Depot’s favourite tweets of the week at the end of June 2010. http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/06/our-favorite-tweets-of-the-week-jun-20-jun-26-2010/