The estimable Nathan Smith has just written a really interesting article on Digital Web Magazine called The Village Stew. Suffice to say I’ve been that chef on a number of occasions, and it’s galling to see what would otherwise be a great dish get messed up by the inclusion of myriad random ingredients. As these guys would say; keep it simple.
It’s a shame that web designers and developers are seen in this way – as people with unimpressive skills, a commodity. After all, the world is being changed precisely because of what we make happen (even if the original ideas may come from someone else). Nathan outlines some of the problems we can face when working in a large organisation, and some ways we can mitigate against having our work over-commiteeised.
Of course not all projects and clients are going to be a dream to work with, so we need to be prepared for the problems we could encounter along the way. Until web developers and designers are rightly given the same respect as, say, architects, we’ll just have to take the rough with the smooth.