[IxDA Discuss] A List Apart web design survey results

[Christopher Fahey]

> I'm curious why you would:
> a) Think ALA readers don't represent a representative sample of the
> world's Web designers

As I said before, based on my personal experience interviewing  
hundreds of web designers, IAs, managers, and developers, and working  
with clients with deeply-entrenched and insulated design and  
development teams, I believe that there's an enormous majority of web  
workers whose familiarity with online professional publications of  
any kind, much less forward-looking forums like ALA, is practically  
*zero*. I always ask job interviewees what sites they read to stay up  
to date, and more than half can't even answer the question at all.

ALA is still a niche product. Most in-house development teams have  
only in the last year or so learned what standards-based coding even  
means (table-based sites are still the norm for most enterprise  
sites). SEO companies still make millions recommending seemingly- 
clever things that ALA readers have known and practiced for half a  
decade.

In my experience, easily a majority of people who are designing pages  
and writing code never read any web sites about web design and  
development, never attend conferences, never read blogs. Most people  
learn everything they know at their jobs.

Call me cynical (and I have no basis for this beyond my personal  
experiences), but you and I and everyone on this list are already  
part of profoundly exclusive group. For every IA on this mailing  
list, there are dozens more who make wireframes and flowcharts based  
only on what their colleagues and predecessors in their office did,  
and who read web sites and blogs only when their bosses and cleverer  
colleagues email them links, and who learn new skills only when they  
are formally trained at their company's expense.

So yes, I think it's very safe to assume that the ALA's respondents  
are not representative of the world's web designers.

That said, I think it's safe to assume that the 33,000 respondents  
are pretty representative of the worlds *good* web designers and  
developers. Which are the only ones I care about, usually.

-Cf

Christopher Fahey
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