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I am not sure if this belongs here and I apologise if it does not.

What I would like to know is if there is a test of sorts that can check someone's web design skill level much like the W3C offers tests to check someone's development skills?

Many thanks.

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W3C or W3Schools? Very, very different things: One sets web standards, the other poses as an authority for profit. – tadamson Jan 24 '11 at 23:34
Hi Tadamsonm, thanks for getting back to me. What I meant was that w3cschools, offer tests a person can do to evaluate a person's development skills. What I need is something similar but to gauge someone's web design skills. Like how well they know photoshop, illustrator etc...and then if the design is good, aesthetically pleasing and have a good understanding of UI. This is more for people interviewing someone for a new job. – Sixfoot Studio Jan 26 '11 at 7:01
Oh, certificates. Yes, good developers will have some kind of recognition of their skills - certificates or projects. However, design isn't something that has a scale to it. – Christopher Feb 5 '11 at 4:13

2 Answers

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Simply looking at a page that they built should tell you all that you need to know. See how it looks, how easy it is to use and how many features there are.

However, having a program look through someone's code isn't going to determine their design competency. Design is based on what a human thinks about it and interaction - if it is aesthetically pleasing or not, whether the features work or how complex they might be.

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Thanks Christopher. It's easy enough as a designer myself to judge this but this is for management who will be doing interviews with designers who need something to gauge against. If that makes sense? – Sixfoot Studio Jan 26 '11 at 7:03
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I think it depends on what capacity this person will be working with/for you in the future. If you are hiring him/her in a professional setting, test them in a way that gives them as realistic an outlook as possible - you should definitely create your own test.

For instance, if your consultancy builds static sites from PNG designs, have him/her turn an image into a functional web page by any means necessary. If they lean on Dreamweaver or another tool (assuming you're looking for hand-written ability) you'll find out pretty quickly.

If your aim is to teach and evaluate students, your end goals may be more in tune with encouraging best practices rather than a fully-functional product. If that's what you're going for, have them use the W3C validators for XHTML and CSS, as well as something to verify scripts (Chrome console, Firebug, etc.)

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