This is a really good set of questions. Curious though.you don´t ever test a page in Opera?

Devon, welcome to the community. We get many more requests for testing in Safari than we do for Opera. On average, Opera viewers only accounted for 0.57% of all page views for the entire year. We have also found that if the website will display well in Firefox 2 and Safari, chances are that it will display well in Opera as well.

Good set of questions - I always recommend to all new clients to extensively interview their designer/developer like they were hiring a full time employee.

I think the list is good, but obviously some of the tips apply to some companies while some don´t. Personally I couldn´t care less if people know how to copy folders recursively in a shell, while valid xhtml and css is very important.Besides, the tips are purely based on skills - socializing is a big part of a work place. My experience tells me that programming skills can be learned, while social skills are a bit harder to change.

My client is a website developer, and we did a blog post that is similar to this. I think one of the most important things to keep in mind is what you discuss in point 3. Nobody can guarantee traffic. You can guarantee exposure and proper coding, but the blogosphere can be hard to figure out sometimes. You never know when one post will make a splash and another one doesn't. You are providing very helpful and useful information here, as some so-called 'SEO experts' are gouging people by making promises that nobody can guarantee.

The ability of web developers / designers / support is based communication. We read, write and edit in several languages. "Do you speak actionscript?" should be the next one on your list. Spearing each other in english is childish. I have never met a web expert that did not live up to great expectations.

So you live in HTML and W3C? Well AS3 runs LOOPS around TaBleS and TAGS, and paired with JS (it´s partner in crime), creativity trumps over ´s and peace signs. - the sir digital - we still love ya coders.

This is a good set of questions for a customer to ask a web designer or developer, but what about the questions from the developer to the customer, I came accross a post about questions for a webdeveloper to ask his customer to help him with planning.

A rather detailed list but, the general client isn´t going to know what any of these questions mean and further more know why they are revelant to a website they´d like designed.
The client wants a website that will perform and meet their primary goals.
I´ve found clients are more concerned about the level of service (especially after sales care), cost of development, final professional look of the site and more so the web designers locality to them.

This list is almost better suited to a web design company employing a new web deisgner?
Do you think?

I have been searching for some help with a wordpress plug in and I keep getting, " can do it for $--.-- per hour." Well how long does it take? The prices range from $10 to $105 per hour. If a web designer knows the plug-in then they should be able to give me a estimate. Correct?

Most of the questions are far too technical for the average client to understand the answers.

This just comes across like a boastful rant about how wonderful you think your working practices and how extensive you think your knowledge is.

Paul,

Some are too technical for "common" users, but too many people get burned because they don´t vet their web developer. Looking at someone´s portfolio and asking if they make their websites look similar on all of the major browsers is something that everyone can understand.

Great post. Thanks for posting this.

I´m not a web designer but I´m learning.I enjoy it,and built my own site(well,edited it!not quite finished yet).It´s a good set of questions with an equally good set of answers.
I find wordpress(CSS) can be quite flexible for beginners.
Most people wouldn´t think of asking these questions,hopefully they´ll come across this page and get enlightened.

Web Designing is one of the fundamentals of web development that a web developer some study first.

Interesting questions, but the answers given are beyond my scope of knowledge as a home business entrepreneur. You could answer "Rutabaga 123" and I would not know the difference.

These are really the good list of questions . Personally i come to know some of the new questions that any design company ask from their clients . Really good.