.insane

Please Introduce your self?

Hi, my name is Paul Boag. I am a founding partner of a web design company called Headscape as well as a web design podcaster over at boagworld.com. I also write for .net magazine and speak at various web design conference.

Tell us about your company Headscape.co.uk

Headscape was founded in 2002 when the dot com company I was working at went out of business. That company had a number of high profile clients for whom they were developing sites. Instead of abandoning these clients mid project, we offered to complete their work under the Headscape banner. We have been going ever since. The company currently has 12 employees and we are growing all the time. Clients include a number of large public sector organisations as well as private companies and higher education institutions.

How did you start off on the net?



I designed my first website back in 1994 while working for IBM. To be frank I hated the web then. I was used to working on multimedia applications and so early browsers seemed incredibly limiting. After all what designer wants to work on something when you have no control over layout (this was before tables), colour or typography!

What was your first project?

The first site I built was for Rank (the film distribution company). It had a grey background, centred text and one image. Web design was simple in those days!

What advice do you have for someone who is starting web design/ web development?

Don’t run before you can walk. Too many newbies are desperate to get into the server side stuff or technologies like flash. Instead, focus on knowing HTML, CSS and Javascript back to front. Everything is built on those three technologies. Everything else should take second place. Focus on your users needs rather than the next bit of cool bit of technology you want to play with and remember that ultimately web design is about making money for your clients.

What would you do differently?

Nothing. Sure I have done lots wrong but that is part of the learning process. Working for the dot com company I mentioned earlier was a disaster. It was the worst career move I ever made but I would change it for the world. That was where I learnt how NOT to run a company. That has stood me in good stead ever since.

Tools of the trade?

Photoshop, Dreamweaver (code view only), pen, paper.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

My Family… oh yes and lots of sci-fi

What is most irking to you about new web developers?

The general attitude within the community that clients are stupid. They are not stupid, they just have a different perspective. They don’t care about technology, validation, CSS or any other buzzword you care you mention. They care about return on investment and I think we should care about that more too.

If you could remove one website off the internet forever what would it be and why?

I wouldn’t remove any. One of the greatest things about the web is free speech. I wouldn’t want to undermine that.

As a Web Developer why do you think that us web developers should implement standards?

Wow, I couldn’t possibly begin to answer that here. There are just too many reasons. Personally I would be happy if none of your readers ever adopted standards. They will quickly be out of business if they do that and then that leaves less competition for Headscape J

Thanks for taking your time to take do an interview with us.

Paul Boag is the owner of http://www.headscape.co.uk and is an extremely successful web developer regularly speaking at conferences with noted speakers like Andy Budd. He is a Web Standards Zealot and is the host of the boagworld podcast for those involved in designing, developing and running websites on a daily basis. It is quite an amazing podcast that everyone should listen to. his personal blog is at http://www.boagworld.com

Michael

Wow great interview ! will add to the other sites!