Blog #4 To Hire or Create your own/usability/accessibility

Anyone can create a website. This is a great freedom to have but it can also have its disadvantages. This means that you must be careful when viewing other people’s websites and be sure that they are credible especially if you are using them for research. I learned this week that you can either create a website yourself or hire someone else to create it for you. If you create the website yourself, you can choose to be a purist and create it by using html code or you can opt for a web authorizing software which will write the code for you. One of the amazing qualities of web pages is that any computer anywhere in the world can read html. One of the benefits of knowing html is that you can tweak the code and further enhance the web page that is created using software.
Through careful reading and analysis of the course materials one can determine that there are many advantages and disadvantages to creating your own website vs. hiring someone to do it for you.
One of the advantages of creating your own website rather than hiring someone is cost. If you hire someone to create a professional website for you it can cost up to a thousand dollars or more depending on the content. However, a drawback of creating your own website as opposed to hiring someone is that creating your own website takes lots of time. Hiring someone will obviously save you time but you are paying for that convenience. One thing to keep in mind is that if you choose to hire someone and try to get a bargain price for having someone else create it you may end up with a lesser quality website.
It is important to identify the purpose of your website before you decide if you want to create it yourself vs. hiring someone. If the website is for entertainment for family and friends there are many choices out there for you to choose from. You can choose to create the website on your own. You can choose free website builders which may work well for developing these types of websites. However, if you are building a website for an expensive business of yours you may want to opt to have a professional build it for you since business will depend on it.
One of the interesting pieces of information I read this week was that if someone who is creating their own website is passionate about their subject the site, although created by an amateur, will often times be incredible due to the passion behind it. I would say this would be one of the advantages to creating our own site in that there would be great satisfaction in the accomplishment of your finished product.
Whether you are creating your own website or having a professional build it for you it is important that it have accessibility. Accessibility can be defined as a website that anyone and everyone can use and take pleasure in with no exceptions. For instance the government websites are fully accessible in that they create them so that people with disabilities can use them. They also offer other languages for full accessibility. This also means your website can be viewed by people that are visually or hearing impaired.
Usability means how easy it is for a website is to use. Obviously it is important to keep this in mind when designing your website. You don’t want people becoming frustrated or discouraged as they are navigating through your website. I learned that there are actually testing industries out there that will test usability. If you are making your own website it would be important to test the usability and keep in mind the ease with which you can navigate through the website. Both accessibility and usability are important so that you can reach as many people as possible with the benefits of your website. The more people you can attract through accessibility and usability to use your website the more successful it will be.