August 17th, 2007 Posted in Business, Web Design

So what does it take to be a UKWDA member?

I have been scoping out local web design places lately, and going through the list of UKWDA members near me. Now I thought that being a member of the UKWDA might mean something positive. They make a stab at being credible, with a code of ethics stating that members should play nicely and “strive for excellence through professional improvement.” All sites must be family safe. All applications are verified and checked etc.

I spent all day researching the local members. Out of the 150 or so companies that came up on my search, I would only trust 15-20 of these companies to make me a site. It concerns me that a lot of the sites were dead, or now had parked domain search pages on. Most of the sites were appalling – amateurish, badly designed, full of typos, full of bullshit etc etc. The UKWDA aims to be a credible source to find a professional web designer, but fails horribly. They obviously don’t monitor their database, and have very low standards for accepting members.

http://www.whichwebdesigncompany.co.uk/ seems like a much better idea to me. So, what does it take to be a UKWDA member? Not a lot, apparently.