I was putting together a proposal for a site this morning. I normally try and avoid jargon, and explain concepts in as simple terms as possible, but can’t really avoid using (good) terms such as ‘Web Standards’, ‘CSS’, ‘unobtrusive JavaScript’ and ‘graded browser support’.

I explain these terms in a few sentences, highlighting the benefits to search engines and maintainability. When I realised, clients probably ignore this entire page assuming that all web designers use the best techniques, which in Singapore is sadly not true in the slightest.

So this part of the proposal needed to indicate that this is a difference between one of the best web design companies in Singapore (egomaniac alert) and a lot of the shabby work done by other less savvy agencies. I’m also tired of being perceived as expensive compared to ‘web shops’ that churn out the same horrible mistakes all the time.

So I put together a little sidebar that encourages a little discovery on the client’s behalf to examine a competitor’s own site or proposal and make sure the client is not comparing apples to oranges.

We try to keep jargon out of things as much as possible.

However, the technology we use to build sites is important, it improves the quality of the site for search engines by removing non-relevant code and makes your site design more maintainable for future changes.

If other proposals you receive do not include mention of the following terms they’re either not any good, their skills are out of date or you are getting an inferior service:

web standards
html
css (cascading style sheets)
unobtrusive javascript

You can also go to a web design company’s own site and right click on any empty space and select ‘view source’ from the pop up menu.

Scroll down, and if you see a lot of <table>s, <tr>s or <td>s in the text then they are using 10 year old techniques, a lifetime on the web.

If you want to discuss any of the terms we’ve used on this page or want to get a better understanding feel free to give us a call and we’ll explain, in plain English.

I’m pretty happy with that.

If a client isn’t willing to invest a little time in researching who they want to use to build their site, they may be a difficult or disinterested client anyway. I like to work with people passionate about their businesses, it rubs off on me and I do better work that way.