By and large, web designers are very passionate about their job. That stands out in contrast to most other industries. But when it comes to the bottom line, web design is just like other businesses. The main point is to gain clients and make a decent living.
As such, there is a lot of talk about booking big clients with budgets to match. Yet, that’s not always realistic – especially for freelancer designers who are just starting to make their way. Even seasoned pros may not have the desire or capacity to take on larger projects.
Still, going for the biggest fish seems to be the prevailing advice. So, does that mean smaller projects aren’t worth anything? Absolutely not. There are still important things to be gained. Here are a few reasons why you may not want to toss those little fish aside.
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Among the biggest challenges any business owner must face is in learning how to deal with people. I’d say it’s nearly as important as being a talented designer and developer.
Just as no two projects are the same, you’ll find that no two clients are, either. This means that you will interact with all kinds of different personalities over the course of your career.
Soon after I launched my business, I took on all manner of small projects – and met a few characters along the way. And, even though I didn’t see it that way at the time, it also presented a great opportunity.
You see, I didn’t make a whole lot of money. But I learned some important lessons about how to communicate with my clients. I figured out how to explain things in more user-friendly terms, how to keep them updated on work in progress. I also gained valuable insight into what their expectations were and how to take/respond to criticism.
It was a bumpy ride, for sure. There was a lot of stress and worry. Sometimes I could have handled things better. But the experience itself was priceless. Learning to build working relationships can be a key to both personal and professional growth.
A Chance to Sharpen Skills
There are plenty of places where web designers can learn new skills. But to truly put those skills into practice, you need to build something. Small projects can serve as a great proving ground.
For one, the expectation level should be equal to a client’s budget (though it’s important for you to explain this to them). A low-end eCommerce project, then, should mean fewer features and customizations.
This allows you to start small and build a foundational understanding of the type of site you’re working on. It can also serve as a bit of a playground for experimentation.
Because you’re on a shoestring budget, you probably won’t have access to some of the fancier scripts or plugins. The result is that you may have to dig into code a little more to get things done. It’s a wonderful method for figuring out how things work.
Find Yourself
The more projects you have under your belt, the more you can learn about yourself. What kind of projects do you like? What type of workflow works for you?
These are valuable lessons to learn before you move on to bigger things. Because, until you understand your niche within the industry, it can be difficult to set yourself up for success.
For instance, it’s probably not a good idea to take on a massive project without having any idea of how you’re going to approach it. Without knowing which tools to use or even whether or not you’ll be comfortable with the work involved, you’re opening up a dangerous can of worms. You could well be placing yourself in a bad situation.
While smaller projects still need to be taken seriously, you can use them as a sort of guide. Inevitably, you’ll find that you like some aspects more than others. Perhaps you’ll realize that you are really into SEO, while learning that membership-based sites aren’t your cup of tea.
Whatever your preferences, the goal is to find out where you fit in. That takes time and often requires working on a variety of different projects. This is where you can use smaller gigs as a way to discover who you are.
Something More Than Money
It’s unlikely that you’ll get rich relying on small web design projects. That’s why many designers aim higher over the long term. But that doesn’t mean they lack value. Quite the opposite.
Building websites at the lower end of the spectrum is a great way to develop you brand, become better at your job and find your comfort zone. And while you don’t have to stay in this realm forever, you should make the most of it while you are there. It will help you prepare for what lies ahead.
The keynote speaker at this year’s PHP Barcelona conference was Rasmus Lerdorf the creator of PHP and he gave an excellent talk about the history of PHP, PHP 7.4 & 8, career advice, motivation, burn-out and focusing on things that really matter.
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Crafty Code Coverage
London, UK
Monday, December 9th 2019, 13:30 GMT
Xdebug's code coverage functionality has had dead code analysis for years. It is used to be able to mark lines of as having executable code on it, as well as lines which c...
Scrolling is among the most basic tasks we ask of users. And, judging from the amount of scrolling on websites and apps these days – we’re asking a lot.
Adding scroll-based effects can be a great way to enhance user experience. That is, so long as they don’t interfere with the ability to navigate through long stretches of content. If anything, effects should make things easier and add a bit of flair to the mix.
Here is a collection of scrolling effects and utilities that will wow your visitors and (hopefully) stay out of their way.
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Modern webpages are often broken down into multiple content sections – each with its own distinct elements. This handy snippet adds a button (available in a variety of styles) to the bottom of the screen that allows users to click and scroll to the next section down. It uses CSS IDs coupled with jQuery to make the navigation work.
Scroll indicators have become very popular on content-heavy websites. They communicate how far a user is into a story in an easy-to-digest method. Bonus that this solution is CSS-only.
Okay, this snippet isn’t necessarily an effect on its own. But it does serve a purpose. So often, designers utilize full-screen background images and other elements that may make scrolling ambiguous to the user. With that, small items like this animated scroll icon let users know that yes, there is more content down below. It’s not right for every situation, but there are times when it makes sense.
Sticky headers like this one have become a staple over the years. Why? They can add a ton of user convenience. The ability to navigate to other areas of a site without having to scroll up to the top of the page just makes life easier. As per usual, this example shrinks into a more compact element as you scroll down the page.
Here’s another take on the sticky header. This time, it’s fine-tuned for a one-page site. The top navigation automatically highlights the current content section and allows users to quickly switch between them.
Let’s take a look at another snippet that would be a great fit for one-page sites or a long page with multiple content sections. It uses CSS and a little bit of jQuery to change the background color as you scroll down (and yes, it works in reverse too). You might also want to check out a script that does the same thing, but with gradients.
Have you ever wanted your website to scroll horizontally instead of vertically? You can do that without any fancy scripts, of course. But what if you didn’t want a horizontal scroll bar? In that case, you’d need something like this example. It utilizes a script called jInvertScroll, which turns your site into a side-scroller, complete with parallax effects.
Among the bigger trends these days is animating content as it comes into the viewport. When tastefully done, it can bring attention to each section. But go too far and it becomes more like an online circus act. If you decide to take the plunge, consider this snippet. It’s powered by the AOS (animate on scroll) library.
Back in the day, the prevailing thought was to avoid scrolling at all costs. Now, social media and smartphones have trained us to cover long expanses with our thumbs (and cursors). So, we might as well make it both fun and useful.
That’s what the snippets above aim to do. They cover a variety of use cases and, for the most part, steer clear of being obtrusive. It’s what building a solid UX is all about.
Looking for more ideas? Take a look at our CodePen collection for additional scroll snippets!
You’ve probably heard that WordPress is open-source software, and may know that it’s created and run by volunteers. WordPress enthusiasts share many examples of how WordPress changed people’s lives for the better. This monthly series shares some of those lesser-known, amazing stories.
Meet Jill Binder
Jill Binder never meant to become an activist. She insists it was an accident.
Despite that, Jill has led the Diversity Outreach Speaker Training working group in the WordPress Community team since 2017. This group is dedicated to increasing the number of women and other underrepresented groups who are stepping up to become speakers at WordPress Meetups, WordCamps, and events.
Jill’s back story
Internship
Jill’s WordPress story begins in 2011, in Vancouver, Canada. Jill secured an internship for her college program, working on a higher education website that was built in WordPress. As a thank you, her practicum advisor bought Jill a ticket to WordCamp Vancouver 2011: Developer’s Edition. After that Jill began freelancing with WordPress as a Solopreneur.
First steps in the WordPress community
The following year her internship advisor, who had become a client, was creating the first ever BuddyCamp for BuddyPress. He asked Jill to be on his organizing team. At that event she also moderated a panel with Matt Mullenweg. Then, Jill was invited to be on the core organizing team for WordCamp Vancouver.
Part of this role meant reviewing and selecting speakers. From 40 speaker applications the team had to pick only 14 to speak.
The diversity challenge when selecting speakers
For anyone who has organized a conference, you know that speaker selection is hard. Of the 40 applications, 7 were from women, and the lead organizer selected 6 of those to be included in the speaker line up.
At this point Jill wasn’t aware that very few women apply to speak at tech conferences and suggested selection should be made on the best fit for the conference. The team shared that not only did they feel the pitches were good and fit the conference, but they also needed to be accepted or the Organizers would be criticized for a lack of diversity.
Selecting women for fear of criticism is embarrassing to admit, but that’s how people felt in 2013.
By the time the event happened, though, the number of women speakers dropped to 4. And with an additional track being added, the number of speakers overall was up to 28. Only 1 speaker in 7 was a woman (or 14%) and attendees did ask questions and even blogged about the lack of representation.
What keeps women from applying?
Later that year at WordCamp San Francisco—the biggest WordCamp at the time (before there was a WordCamp US)—Jill took the opportunity to chat with other organizers about her experience. She found out that many organizers had trouble getting enough women to present.
Surprisingly Vancouver had a high number of women applicants in comparison to others, and the consensus was more would be accepted if only more would apply.
Jill decided that she needed to know why this was happening? Why weren’t there more women applying? She started researching, reading, and talking to people.
Though this issue is complex, two things came up over and over:
“What would I talk about?”
“I’m not an expert on anything. I don’t know enough about anything to give a talk on it.”
A first workshop with encouraging results
Then Jill had an idea. She brought up the issue at an event and someone suggested that they should get women together in a room and brainstorm speaker topics.
So Jill became the lead of a small group creating a workshop in Vancouver. In one of the exercises, participants were invited to brainstorm ideas—this proved that they had literally a hundred topic ideas and the biggest problem then became picking just one!
In the first discussion, Jill focussed on:
Why it matters that women (added later: diverse groups) are in the front of the room
The myths of what it takes to be the speaker at the front of the room (aka beating impostor syndrome)
Different presentation formats, especially story-telling
Finding and refining a topic
Tips to become a better speaker
Leveling up by speaking in front of the group throughout the afternoon
Vancouver Workshop 2014
Leading to workshops across North America and then the world
Other cities across North America heard about the workshop and started hosting them, adding their own material.
Many women who initially joined her workshop wanted help getting even better at public speaking. So Jill’s team added in some material created from the other cities and a bit more of their own. Such as:
Coming up with a great title
Writing a pitch that is more likely to get accepted
Writing a bio
Creating an outline
At WordCamp Vancouver 2014—only one year since Jill started—there were 50% women speakers and 3 times the number of women applicants! Not only that, but this WordCamp was a Developer’s Edition, where it’s more challenging to find women developers in general, let alone those who will step up to speak.
More work is needed!
Impressive as those results were, the reason Jill is so passionate about this work is because of what happened next:
Some of the women who attended the workshop stepped up to be leaders in the community and created new content for other women.
A handful of others became WordCamp organizers. One year Vancouver had an almost all-female organizing team – 5 out of 6!
It also influenced local businesses. One local business owner loved what one of the women speakers said so much that he hired her immediately. She was the first woman developer on the team, and soon after she became the Senior Developer.
Diversity touches on many levels
Jill has seen time and again what happens when different people speak at the front of the room. More people feel welcome in the community. The speakers and the new community members bring new ideas and new passions that help to make the technology we are creating more inclusive. And together we generate new ideas that benefit everyone.
This workshop was so successful, with typical results of 40-60% women speakers at WordCamps, that the WordPress Global Community Team asked Jill to promote it and train it for women and all diverse groups around the world. In late 2017, Jill started leading the Diverse Speaker Training group (#wpdiversity).
Dozens of community members across the world have now been trained to lead the workshop. With now dozens of workshops worldwide, for WordPress and other open source software projects as well, there is an increase in speaker diversity.
WordCamp US 2019
As a result of the success, Jill is now sponsored to continue the program. She’s proud of how the diversity represented on the stage adds value not only to the brand but also in the long-term will lead to the creation of a better product. She’s inspired by seeing the communities change as a result of the new voices and new ideas at the WordPress events.
Jill’s leadership in the development and growth of the Diversity Outreach Speaker Training initiative has had a positive, measurable impact on WordPress community events worldwide. When WordPress events are more diverse, the WordPress project gets more diverse — which makes WordPress better for more people.”
Andrea Middleton, Community organizer on the WordPress open source project
This post is based on an article originally published on HeroPress.com, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. HeroPress highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories would otherwise go unheard.
Meet more WordPress community members over at HeroPress.com!
