The document discusses the professionalization of web design. It summarizes research interviewing 31 web designers about their work. It finds that web designers take pride in their craft and see accessibility as a key part of professionalism. They work hard to continuously learn and improve through podcasts, blogs, conferences and networking with other designers. While this professionalization can encourage high standards, the document calls for more research on how it may also exclude some groups and what the political and economic implications are.

1. Net work:
the professionalization
of web design
Kennedy Helen (2010)
Raphaëlle LAUBIE
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2. KENNEDY, HELEN
Principal Lecturer in Interactive Media in the School
of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies at the
University of East London.
Researching new media in/equalities,
Interested in collaborative new media production,
her current research on Inclusive New Media Design
focuses on new media design and production
practices
She has published articles and edited a book on the
subjects of gender, technology, in/equality and
virtual identity.
Her interactive media practice includes a range of
collaborative projects, on which she has worked as
project manager, website builder and programmer.
Net work: the professionalization of web design
Kennedy Helen
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3. ISSUE
Paper is a call for research response to Gill’s 2002 paper invoking that new
media workers are rarely studied:
- What they feel about their work
- What works mean to them
INMD (Inclusive New Media Design)’s panel of 31 designers (13 w and 18 m):
- web designer
- web developer
- digital content producer
- creative director
- information architect
Net work: the professionalization of web design
Kennedy Helen
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4. LITERATURE INPUTS: CHARACTERISTICS OF W
Intense passion for their work (web professionals) mainly explains but the
pleasurable activity (Gill, 2007; Christopherson, 2004; Kennedy, 2009. Neff at
al., 2005)
Importance of creativity: (Florida, 2003)
- work practices
- lifestyles
What Ross (2003) calls “the industrialisation of bohemia’’:
- uneven project based working patterns (up to 80-hour weeks)
- flexibility and adaptibility
Characteristics of these working patterns:
- freedom and autonomy (Leadbeater,and Oakley, 1999) (+)
- heterarchical organisations (Writtel et al., 2002) (+)
- ‘corrosion of character’ due to the lack of stability (Sennett, 1998) (-)
- individualization of work implying an increased sense of risk (Deuze, 2007;
Sennett, 1998, 2006) (-)
Net work: the professionalization of web design
Kennedy Helen
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5. LITERATURE INPUTS: STRATEGIES
Because precarity and affect are linked (Ehrenstein, 2007), strategies have to
be developed:
- Mobilisation of experience
- Networking
 matter of culture (Castell, 1996)
 core competence of new media work
With network characteristics:
- is a matrix of fleeting and dynamic encounters, a response to the
transient and disembedded conditions of late capitalism (Wittel, 2001) (+)
- replacement of hierarchies with loose networks at work is indicative
of increased ambiguity and other ills in work today (Sennett, 2006) (-)
With limits, it doesn’t apply to all media work
Net work: the professionalization of web design
Kennedy Helen
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6. ON PROFESSIONALISM IN NEW MEDIA WORK
Professionalism in new media work with relationship between policy and work
Identity (Christopherson, 2004) :
- in old media (television and film), workers defined themselves as
professionals – ‘occupational groups that are self-governing’ (2004: 551),
- recent economic and regulatory changes mean that old and new media
workers alike are increasingly entrepreneurial – that is, ‘self-investors’
whose ‘career goal is success as an independent contractor, not in full-
time, long-term employment’ (2004: 552)
‘new media work is more appropriately characterized as entrepreneurial than
as professional’
Web evangelist Molly Holzschlag defines this new professionalism as follows:
‘The essence of this new professionalism isn’t about being perfect at what we
do. It’s being able to say: Hey, I don’t know that. Let me go find out. This
new professionalism means taking responsibility for the education of
ourselves and each other. (2005)’
Net work: the professionalization of web design
Kennedy Helen
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7. ON PROFESSIONALISM IN NEW MEDIA WORK
Accessibility
#1 Accessibility as a necessary component of the project of
being a good web professional.
Commitment to web accessibility for groups of people
with a wide range of disabilities is striking (‘turn’
Building an towards professionalism)
accessible
Ten years ago, it was common to believe that designing
web, for an accessibly limited creativity. Number of web designers
audience as and developers are increasingly committed to
accessibility as an integral part of their work.
broad as
possible Accessibility no longer hinders creativity – instead,
creativity is mobilized as a means to come up with
accessible design solutions
Net work: the professionalization of web design
Kennedy Helen
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8. ON PROFESSIONALISM IN NEW MEDIA WORK
Keeping up
#2 Research participants testimonies:
I listen to a lot of podcasts on my mobile.…I tend to listen to them when I’m
washing up, walking or doing other things that I need to do, but don’t need to
think about.
The effort (Timothy, self-employed web developer)
I’ve got an iPhone and use that to send and receive emails, and subscribe to
that they podcasts.… I update Twitter regularly using Hahlo and have even blog posted
from my iPhone. I have gReader bookmarked where I read rss feeds.… I follow
make to many in the standards community who are already using Twitter to share
information, link to blog posts, etc. The reactions are immediate and there has
keep up been some interesting debate
on Twitter, all in 140-letter posts!
with their (Gregory, self-employed web designer)
New professionalism of web workers is the
trade ability to acknowledge and take responsibility for gaps
in knowledge (Holzschlag, 2005)
Net work: the professionalization of web design
Kennedy Helen
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9. ON PROFESSIONALISM IN NEW MEDIA WORK
Keeping up
#2 Therefore web workers are ‘always on’, and according to
Ross (2003) ‘such workstyles suck’ and is working as ‘like
being paid for a hobby’ (Gill, 2007)
The effort Probably the main reason I love the industry I work in so much is the
communication aspect, so that anyone anywhere can communicate with anyone
that they else because of this brilliant tool. And every day that excites me and it excites
me how different people use it and the new things and the new ideas people
make to are coming up with.
Underpinning all that, my interest in usability and accessibility is trying to
keep up make sure that anyone, on any device, with any ability, can use that
communication tool, because I think it would be a grave shame if we didn’t
with their make sure that it was open to everyone.
(Gregory, self-employed web designer)
trade What comes first for this web worker, passion or
professionalism? The two items are tightly linked.
Net work: the professionalization of web design
Kennedy Helen
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10. ON PROFESSIONALISM IN NEW MEDIA WORK
A serious craft
One of the things that Sennett (2006) laments in the
#3 postmodern culture of the new capitalism is the shift
from depth to surface
What counts In web design the flexible worker and the craftsperson,
are not opposites. Thus it is possible to be simultaneously
at work an adaptable, entrepreneur-like labourer in
today is the contemporary flexible organizations, a craftsperson and
a professional.
deeper skills
of the Craftspersonship and flexibility are both intricately
bound up with professionalism, as caring about realizing
craftsperson the craft of web design well, which in turn means being
flexible and adaptable, and keeping up to date with new
developments.
Net work: the professionalization of web design
Kennedy Helen
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11. ON PROFESSIONALISM IN NEW MEDIA WORK
Networking practices
Is Networking important in web designers work?
Networking is important when you think about being active in your industry.
But if you’re active in the industry and you’re putting stuff out and you’re out
#4 there being known for what you’re doing then that’s really important.…It does
depend on how you define networking.
(Paul, creative director, independent web design agency)
Networking Sharing experiences are the ‘best thing’ about the
workshops, and many participants shared what they
practices is learnt in them, by discussing, sharing physical resources,
sharing or blogging about the project.
Participation in networking/sharing practices is
voluntary, self-managed and self-regulated. By opening
up their code for feedback from others, web designers
assume individual responsibility for maintaining high,
professional standards.
Net work: the professionalization of web design
Kennedy Helen
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12. CALL FOR RESEARCH
Questions that remained unanswered:
- Is the professionalization of web design a form of control, and if so, who is
controlling what?
- Are its ethical codes – of web standards and of accessibility –
a means of excluding outsiders?
- If so, who is getting excluded when web designers talk about good and bad
web design practice?
- What does it mean, then, ideologically, to talk about web design as
professionalized and professionalizing, and what are the consequences for
web audiences, especially disabled ones?
- It is laudable that accessibility and inclusion form part of a sense of
professionalism among web designers, but what are the full political and
economic implications of this?
Addressing these questions will contribute to our understanding of the labour
and politics of web design.
Net work: the professionalization of web design
Kennedy Helen
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13. Net work: the professionalization of web design
Kennedy Helen
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