How do I find a qualified web designer in my area? [closed]

Question

I just sent out emails to five local web design companies to my area asking to take drawings to HTML/CSS/jQuery. None of the ones who accepted the deal seem suitable to myself. Others rejected the offer because they wanted to 'provide an end-to-end solution' or are 'booked till June'.

The local companies did not seem suitable to myself because my review process is this: goto their website, do a view-source. I'll see really weird things (contact us forms that go nowhere), really old things (mm_menu.js), and portfolios that are non-existent (aren't on the site, don't link anywhere, or otherwise).

The company would like to hire as locally as they can rather than out-source to another country.

Answers I'm looking for

• Processes you use when searching for someone
• How you qualify their aptitude for the project
• Anything that you think I'm doing wrong, or should be doing also.

Answers I'm not looking for:

1. "Hello sir please contact me we do everything for 10 dolla."
2. My bud's great at this stuff, call him.
3. example.com is the best for this.

Answer 1

I might start out by searching for people on google, because if their own site isn't findable, I won't trust that mine would be.

Then I would want to see some portfolio sites, ideally ones where they use the technology I'm wanting to use. If they don't have any, they don't get to do the job unless they can show they clearly understand what I'm talking about and how to implement it.

Be ready to widen the net- there are a lot of decent designers and developers around so no point settling for someone weak just because they are very local rather than somewhat local.

If I can't find anyone convincing that way, I might look the other way- find some sites that do something like what I am looking for and then find out who developed them.

Answer 2

Why are you going to web design studios if you need web development? Web design studios usually design and develop websites from scratch. What you need is a web development company.

Tips for evaluating web development companies:

1. Look at their previous work, view source.

2. Contact them and see if they respond reasonably fast and that the manager is adequate, helpful and concise. This is very important, as it tells a lot about the company culture.

3. Contact their past clients. This can be easily done by contacting owners of the websites they've made. People are surprisingly eager to recommend, or -- even more so -- to criticize their contractors. These references are very useful.

4. Ask for an estimate and evaluate their offer. Things to look out for: are the price and time constraints reasonable? Did they forget an important stage (e.g. testing)? Is there any noticeable BS?

The most important things are their previous work and their communication and management skills. Keep in mind: when things go wrong (as they inevitably will), you'll have to rely on their communication and management skills, as much as their ability to produce quality code, to fix things.