What to look for in a freelance DH web designer/developer? « Digital Humanities Questions & Answers

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What to look for in a freelance DH web designer/developer?

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Asked 4 years ago by pianissimo.nyc@gmail.com
Latest answer from Patrick Murray-John

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pianissimo.nyc@gmail.com
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[Since DH Answers isn't really meant to be a jobs board, I'm exercising an admin's privilege and changing the title of this post to gear discussion more toward general advice. What should people like Brian be looking for, when seeking freelance help to execute DH projects? -- Ed.]

Hello,

I'm an independent scholar preparing a modern-spelling, heavily annotated edition of a 16th-century text. Eventually I hope to publish my edition in book form, but for various reasons I'd first like to make it available to subscribers online.

Can anyone recommend a freelance web designer/developer, familiar with subscription software, who could help me create a website for an electronic edition and make the content available to individual and institutional subscribers? Ideally he or she would be in New York City, but location isn't critical.

I've worked out roughly how I'd like the site to look and function, but I don't have the skills to implement my ideas. And I'm even more clueless about subscription software.

The site will consist of about five small web pages, with a few paragraphs of copy and 5 or 10 captioned images on each page. These will provide a context for the original 60,000-word text (plus 100,000 words comprising my 1,000 substantive footnotes and 2,000 word glosses). The text won't be downloadable but only viewable by scrolling from page to page. If I can get the proper permission, I'd also like to include
facsimile pages from the original book, but this may be beyond my means right now.

Many thanks in advance for any recommendations,

Brian
pianissimo.nyc@gmail.com
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Posted 4 years ago Permalink
Kevin Hawkins
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While Brian says he's looking for technical assistance, I wonder if a bit of business planning would be in order as well.

You want to have individual and institutional subscribers, but I'm skeptical that you will get any of either for a new publication. Is this 16th-century text so important to scholars and institutions that they'll pay for online access to it? Who will market it to them? Unless you have particular costs to recover, I would try to make it freely available (open access) so that more people find and use your scholarly edition.

And do you really want to prevent users from downloading your whole text?

As for the technical questions, the skills that you will need in a developer depend on the current shape of your content. Is your scholarly edition currently in TEI XML, Microsoft Word, or something else? If it's not in XML already, do you have ambitions for it to be moved into TEI in the course of putting this online?

Posted 4 years ago Permalink
Patrick Murray-John

I have two sets of responses, the first of which address the question of what you should look for in someone else:

It'll be really important for them to be flexible to changing requirements and ideas. A lot of people might come from a background with solid project management, in the form of defining requirements early, setting milestones for project steps and getting feedback, and a clear path defined upfront for the process to bringing the project to conclusion.

I'd say look for someone who is happy to work without those things. Given the time constraints and habits of people in academia, they need to know that it could be a very different process for them. If they aren't prepared for that, then it probably won't be a good match.

Also, they should be willing and able to do some teaching to you. The business planning and project management stuff falls into this category, but depending on your existing background with web publishing and design, there might very well be things that they should be comfortable teaching you about.

A background in the humanities is also obviously a plus, and might be easier to find than you think.

In short, they should be flexible, interested in your work, and willing to give you the feedback you need to make it a success.

Now, the second part, in which I reframe the question again -- into what you should look for in yourself.

First off, be a willing student to learning from them, to match how much they might need to teach you. From my experience as an instructional technology person working with faculty, I can say that the most successful projects were the ones where the professor was willing to give up the carefully-made plans and designs. Success came from a partnership, in which I learned what was important about their content and why they wanted to present it the way they did, and they learned from me what does and does not work on the web to get to those goals. If whomever you hire is good, they will teach you things about how to present your knowledge and ideas on the web.

Also, look for yourself to adjust to their scheduling needs. If they are freelancing, they're doing some fancy footwork to make sure that paychecks come in. That'll mean that they'll want to time milestones and get feedback in a complex juggling of their other commitments. And so, for example, when they ask for feedback by a particular date, really push to meet that. You may be hiring them, and they might want to do the project, but if the business relationship becomes a liability to their ability to pay their bills, they'll have to drop the project.

Many of the postings on Clients From Hell will help understand what not to do.

In short, look for the ability to forge a good intellectual and business partnership in both of you.

Posted 4 years ago Permalink

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