The My Neighbors Son Knows Computers Syndrome

Eventually, her hair will grow back. She will then go to a professional hair dresser and get a new style that will attract compliments and interaction, rather than wide eyes and reluctance. She will pay $40, $70, perhaps $125 or more, as apposed to the $10 she gave her neighbors son. And odds are, her next interview at a DIFFERENT day care center will last a little longer and have better results.

Within the Web Professional circles, we call them Weekend FP Hacks, or simply Frontpagers. Typically someone that makes a few sites for friends or family using Front Page, Pagemill or some other such editor in their spare time. Sometimes a so called "Web Design Company" made up of 1 or more individuals with the same credentials. Usually a friend of a friend.

• Deryk E Brown

Perhaps an even bigger problem is the ad-agency types who build a website that looks good on the surface, but is unspiderable (search can't read it) and unindexable (search engines can't database it). A weekend hack job can be seen for what it is, while one of those good-looking disasters is harder for the layman to identify as a problem.

Your web site speaks volumes about how you carry your business. Second rate sites do not instill confidence in your customers. Amateurs just don’t have the know how to get the most of the web. It is no good having an attractive site if it does not attract visitors.

In general, bad sites don't help anyone. Whether they're cheap and thrown together, beautiful and expensive but non-spiderable, all graphics and slow loading, or entirely in Flash. Nobody likes to hear that they have wasted time and funds on an essential tool that is wasted space, and nobody wants to spend more marketing dollars to do their sites over again.

It's an unfortunate mistake that we encounter everyday on one of 2 levels. Either from the business owner who decides they don't need us because their neighbors sons friend is going to build a web site for them, or from that business owner 1 - 2 years later who has learned that a bad web site is nothing but unheard noise.

Design, in its broadest sense, is the enabler of the digital era - it's a process that creates order out of chaos, that renders technology usable to business. Design means being good, not just looking good.