Are kids being taught web standards?
Over the last week I’ve been interviewing people for a couple of new positions at work. One of the positions is a Web/Multimedia Designer — ideally a good recent graduate from university or college. After interviewing half a dozen candidates (and reading dozens of CV’s) I noticed a worrying trend.
Despite the number of web and multimedia-related courses available these days — HND Design for Electronic Media, BA Multimedia Design, BSc Internet Computing etc. — there seems to be a lack of knowledge for web standards and accessibility. Although almost all candidates claimed to “know CSS” many seemed a little lost when asked about web standards. When asked about accessibility, many responded along the lines “it’s about adding alt tags to images”.
Worryingly also, almost every CV I read had Dreamweaver listed as a skill, but not one mentioned anything about hand-coding webpages. Your view on hand-coding may differ, but I place great importance on the ability to hand-code (if you have a WYSIWYG-editor write the code for you, do you really know (or care) what is going on underneath?).
Maybe we were expecting a bit much for a junior position, but I found the overall experience a little worrying. The tutors and lecturers on these courses should realise that teaching a student to use Dreamweaver and Flash is not enough when it comes to getting a job in the real world.
Posted 4 years, 11 months ago
Here Here. No argument from me on that. Found it from interviewing at my previous job and again now we are looking for new recruits (although I’m not involved in the interview process this time around.)
Fancy doing anything about it? I know I do but time, effort and all that. If there where a few people thought...
I dont know, maybe badger some of the course leaders, bit of industry pressure, some link up between people working in the industry (us) and the future (them)? Idealistic warbling as ever but anyone interested?
Maybe try get some students (or even courses) involved with newcastlenewmedia.org? (which I redesigned again - see how long this one lasts)
Any ideas?
gareth · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
Excellent post.
I’ve had a couple come in for programming positions here too, and I’m noticing a worrying amount of people that consider "building an e-commerce website" the same as "installing [insert off-the-shelf commerce software]".
I’m all for reusing products and all that malarky, but when things go wrong, the job is to be able to debug any issues at a very minimum - and what if someone requires functionality not available in [product]? Are you going to rely on someone developing a plugin for it? Fantastic, as long as the client doesn’t mind waiting a few months until it happens!
The web standards and accessibility thing is a bit of a conundrum, because (especially in this industry) usually the students are more knowledgable than the persons teaching about the subject. This also leads me to believe that the best employees in this business are a mixture of the following:
- Good (proven) work ethic
- Good attitude
- Does the job as a hobby outside of work
My reasons for this are two fold - first, the web industry moves so quickly, you HAVE to learn outside of work - work never stops (to an extent) if you’re to be any good at this stuff, because you simply cannot go without learning something new for very long. Secondly, people used to think that they could sit in the corner and crank out some code and the birds would start singing - more and more I am seeing the opposite; you have to be involved with the clients, you have to be involved in the 'ideas' stage, and you simply have to be enthusiastic and sociable to both win projects and be part of a great team. Gone are the days of the single smelly geek in the corner (sad to say, it cost me a fortune having to buy a new wardrobe and aftershave :P).
Sadly, they do not teach this at University - like you say, they teach Dreamweaver. I would go so far to say that the people you want to employ, may be the ones who didn’t go to university, but have had the motivation within themselves to hone their skills, without the flashy bit of paper that says "i did 4 years of drinking".
Although, they’re more likely to be more sociable. Therefore contradicting myself.
Bah, you’re the employer, hire who you like - i’m going back to coding... (and scratching myself).
Steve Woods · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
in someways im glad i decided to teach myself insteadof going to uni. when i was looking at courses however, they were even worse than they are now. it will always be the same i think. When we (emplyers) are asking for CSS3+ students will no doubt graduate with CSS2 skills.
sometimes feel on the job appreticeships would be appropriate in more fields than plumbing..
glad to see lots of people advertising up here anyway! :)
good luck finding the right people
gray · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
Luckily Steve Woods had a superb teacher when it came to web standards and accessibility :)
I did a course in Multimedia Technology, and the 'web' section of the course was hilarious; Make a site using layers in dreamweaver (WYSIWIG interface) then choose 'convert to tables'. Boof, one website made without the limiations of tabled layouts! I cried when i heard that.
My current company however seems to be all for it. They managed to luck out and hire two like minded css and accessibility zealots who are helping to lead the company in practical accessibility; that is, not box-ticking.
I’m actually planning on writing some articles, and preparing some seminars on standards, aimed at developers. My only concern is that generally people who don’t know standards, don’t want to know standards, otherwise they’d have learnt it themselves :)
Andrew · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
"the 'web' section of the course was hilarious"
"My current company however seems to be all for it"
I think that’s the problem. Companies want the skills but students aren’t getting taught them, or even made aware of their existence. So in my mind it’s both the students fault - if your serious about it and look to the industry you should know the score, and the educators - who I aknowledge have a tuff job keeping up AND teaching but should, in my mind, to at least telling people where to look.
As Graham mentioned, I’d be up for organising/helping out/waffling on with something like skillswap.org up here if their was a core of interest?
Gareth · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
I personally think that programmers and designers are rapidly becoming more and more a seperate specialism (especially for medium-large developments). Surely being a designer is more about reflective practice, utilising organisational & structural tools, implementing aesthetic considerations etc; rather than trying to be a programmer? Being aware of the issue is very important, but should implementation be for a professional programmer?
Equally, I find it interesting how someone can refer themselves as a designer without any academic training.
Oh hum, just a thought.
Jim · 4 years, 11 months ago
Thats a great point Jim; I classed myself as a web developer. Capable of great design, and great solutions to problems. Thats until I joined my recent company.
I’ll try to keep gushes to a minimum, but I feel like I’ve landed on my feet. At my current work, there is one of the most talented programmers I’ve ever worked with, alongside one of the most talented designers (for web) I’ve encountered. When you make the leap from 'one stop shop' (that means the developer doing EVERYTHING) to specialists in each sector the quality of output is greatly improved and theres far less pressure on that one developer.
I’d be all up for a skillswap, however I’m based in Glasgow so we’d have to overcome the language barrier :)
I was actually planning to do something similar up here though, I’d be interested to hear how you get on..!
Andrew · 4 years, 11 months ago
Pressure? You mean there’s more to life than this horrible out-of-control butterfly-in-the-stomach feeling all the time?
*applies to be a binman*
I’m just kidding - I think one of the primary problems with having 'specialists' in each area of the job is, well, you have to employ two (or more) people - whereas some companies are happy to have people who do everything averagely because its been the accepted norm for ages.
Steve · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
Wow, think I hit a nerve there. Lots of great feedback!
The simple answer to the problem is for universities and colleges to improve their courses and teach the right stuff! This can be done through a number of ways e.g. having guest lecturers from industry, running industry seminars for college/uni lecturers to bring them up to speed.
We’ve been in this town for 7 years and not once has a lecturer from any of the local colleges/universities teaching web/multimedia courses approached us to find out what skills we look for in graduates.
Improved courses would benefit everyone - students would get jobs easier, employers wouldn’t have such a hard time finding the right people and course leaders would find more people applying.
Phil · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
I also think it is a problem with software like Dreamweaver and Microsoft Frontpage where these applications kinda of do all the work for you.
The skill of course is understanding how the CSS coding works so you can make the neccessary adjustments. CSS2 is frustrating and this may be associated to the fact that each popular browser renders a page differently so you have to started using the hacks.
I also think that companies (in my experience) do not provide sufficent time to allow a development to meet the current web standards and they seem to forget that not everyone will be using IE.
Berb Brown · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
> We’ve been in this town for 7 years and not once has a lecturer
> from any of the local colleges/universities teaching
> web/multimedia courses approached us to find out
> what skills we look for in graduates.
Y'know why? Because if they came to you to ask what skills you were after, it would highlight how woefully out of date their teaching standards are!
My college and university education in no way helped my career in web development.
Andrew · 4 years, 11 months ago
And of course, a web/multimedia course isn’t just about CSS and Web Standards, so they can’t go into it in any depth anyway - its a broad subject, and lets face it - they’re hardly going to be Gurus anyway are they what with all the other work they have to do outside of lecture time.
I do agree with the "point students in the right direction" point though.
I’m almost as uneducated as you can be (dropped out of college, never went to Uni), and it hasn’t really held me back since I love the job and like to learn about it. I wish I’d chosen the open source route instead of the MS one though, since thats where all the work seems to be (and its increasing as far as I can tell).
Any thoughts on that?
Steve · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
> I classed myself as a web developer.
I still think this is a problem. Descriptive job titles for the web design arena. One persons web developer is another ones web designer, or application designer or...
> having guest lecturers from industry
mmm. That would be us then! I’ve spoke at a couple of Uni things but not directly linked to courses. Anyone got any uni contacts we could hassle? Send in something of a pertition/offer to them?
Gareth · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
Rather than hassle lecturers about speaking to the students, why not get the students to hassle their lecturers? As stated by others above:
1. the students probably know more than their lecturers anyway (and will be gagging for some real world know-how)
2. the lecturers realise this and may resist being made to look out of date
Anyway, see if you can get the kids to put a bit of pressure on. Stick your message on a beer mat, or something. It might just get their attention. ;)
(Incidentally, don’t go seeing stuff like Dreamweaver and Frontpage as problems. They can be excellent productivity aids. The 'being able to hand-code' thing is, of course, also essential, but good experience of rapid development tools is a major plus.)
Mal Ross · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
Without opening a can of worms, i’ve never found Dreamweaver or any other visual tool to be 'rapid' relative to hand coding, indeed i’ve found them more of a hindrance. To keep the post on topic, in my view you basically *have* to handcode to have any chance of having a well structured, slimline, accessible, stanfdards compliant site - and there’s less temptation to use mm_bloatMe() javascript evil when deadlines loom too!
Steve · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
Fair enough - maybe Dreamweaver et al can be used for rapid *prototyping*, then?
Mal Ross · www · 4 years, 11 months ago
Take a look at the work of most webdesign-companies. Their pages are nice and flashy but that’s all. The standard is, that they do not care for web standards and accessibility. So, why should someone study handcoding and web standards if they are not required for most jobs?!
Someone who lists Dreamweaver as a skill... No comment!
If someone asks me "which program do you use to write your pages" everybody thinks I wanna make a fool out of him because I just say: "ms text-editor".
Gustav · www · 4 years, 9 months ago
The main problem I find is low salaries leading to a lot of inexperienced, poor quality staff who aren’t bothered to really learn their trade.
For example, I find that pay in the north-east for "web developers" never tops 25K, and that’s for experienced developers with a dozen languages under their belt.
I know I wouldn’t waste my time applying for those kind of roles, and I feel that since moving to the north-east, employers want experienced staff on 18 year-old trainee wages. I’m not saying that necessarily applies to the role/s you were advertising for, but on the whole - Pay peanuts you get monkeys....
You’re still spot on though that all too many courses teach people to use WYSIWYG editors to create code, and I think this is related to the general perception within society that web development is something their "8-year old nephew can do".
Lee · www · 4 years, 8 months ago