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Oct
26
What you ought to know about the web design survey by A List Apart
Six months ago, A List Apart, decided to garner as much information as possible about the Web industry - in particular, the who, what, when, where and why of web design. What started as a simple survey slowly became possibly some of the most accurate (and current) statistics about the industry in recent times.
I’ve never been against the quest for knowledge - in fact, knowledge is power — and, somehow when you look at the results of the survey there are quite a few interesting tidbits that make you realise just why it has taken commissioned statisticians Alan Brickman and Larry Yu (yes, you read that right! No junior data analysts making $25/hour here) more than 180 days to “translate raw data into meaningful findings (A List Apart)”
From questions like ‘Where do you work?’ drawring interesting conclusions such as ‘hours worked by organisation type’, there is a heck of a LOT of data mining that can go on. For instance, if you look at some of the results, you will find some interesting links such as ‘the higher a salary, the more likely the respondent took part in formal training’ (page 73).
This however raises questions… Notably, did ’sir’ get training on the job, because of his relatively high salary? or as discussed in the survey results, did sir earn more because of the formal training? Questions like this are important to look at in order to get an objective opinion - however, there are only 37 questions and with 32,000 people responding, you’d think the questions would be less next year as opposed to more - or? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
If nothing else, anyone who knows me will know that I am a BIG Mac fanboy.. Just an FYI: The document, as well as the graphs were made on a Mac - specificially in ‘Numbers‘. Figures were transferred over from Microsoft Excel and then exported from Numbers. Cool ya? 
Definitely a good read though.. Have a look at the A List Apart Web Design Survey results.
What do you think about the results of the survey? Do you think they really reflect the current nature of the Web industry? Share your thoughts!
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Comments
1 Michael
14/11/2007
Nice entry
2 Taryn East
08/12/2007
Ok, so I’m personally gender biassed - and I found the results quite interesting on a gender-basis. It kinda confirms the bleedin obvious point that there aren’t enough women developers. I note a high proportion of women in the "softer" field of tech writing and the results showed high percieved skill-gaps for development-based skills.
Something to ponder, even if no causal conclusions can be drawn.
3 Cheb
09/12/2007
Hey Taryn! Thank you for your thought-provoking reply. The survey really does draw that conclusion itself doesn’t it. I think we definitely need more female developers. The thing is, it’s not like we turn them down for interviews or anything of the sort. Over at Wiliam we try and try, and try again to find female developers! It just seems like they are looking for work in other countries or something. There are too many of us blokes in the Web industry.. We have to get some gals!!
I like your blog though. Ruby girl I see! Open source all the way!
Thanks again for your comments.
4 Taryn East
10/12/2007
Agreed - I don’t think it’s a matter of being turned down - from anecdotal evidence I find that a lot of companies look for females to fill the perceived gender gap.
This is a complex problem that needs to be attacked at the source - ie why aren’t girls going into IT from high school? Unfortunately that level is beyond the ability of most organisations to solve.
To get back to the study - I found it interesting that women actually had a slightly higher salary (on average). No doubt related to their relative scarcity and desirability (from a diversity standpoint… ok, probably from other standpoints too, but diversity is the official reason ;)).