10 years ago, I had just started my career as a digital marketing apprentice. I had never tried coding, nor had I any real experience with advanced technologies.

Yes, I could open the task manager on my computer, and read an error log on a printer to know how to fix it. But I couldn’t put words together in such a way that text would look different, or a background would appear on the document.

Then, I was introduced to WordPress. I had never heard of it before, let alone had any idea how to use it. But there I was, a digital marketing apprentice, asked to make a new website for my then-employer’s new brand. 

WordPress’s simple structure held my hand, and its forgiving attitude to my typos ignored my obvious inexperience. It told me in plain English exactly what it was going to do, and kept its output unambiguous. 

It guided me from simple words and basic layouts to mighty functions and data processing. No longer was it just giving me the building blocks to use, but it gave me the tools to build my own blocks. It gave me the materials to build not only a house, but a city. 

To this day, WordPress stays by my side, teaching me new things, and showing me new ways.

So, to HTML and CSS, PHP and Javascript, no matter if we’re making a form or forum, I’m glad to have met you. The things you’ve taught me have helped me no end, and the things we have made my former self could never comprehend.

The thing you’re here for: the actual blog

This year is a big one for me. My spouse and I bought our first house, it has been 10 years since I started working, and I turn 30. So, I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about that second point… because of course I would, I love development. 

It would be amiss of me to say that I wouldn’t be where I am today without learning how to code, and not just because I wouldn’t be doing this job. But as the world of AI grows, and site builders such as Wix and Squarespace start to use AI to help you build your websites, I want to talk about why it is important to have an actual person building your website, and not some faceless entity, whether this is a regular site builder or an AI site generator. 

Passion

Not every developer out there will feel as strongly as I do towards their craft. However, most will have at least some passion for what they do, whether that’s wanting to provide the perfect product, or to make something new and unique. But all good developers will want to see a finished product which they can be proud to show off; there is nothing worse than having something you built that you don’t want your name attached to.

At both Yardstick and at a previous agency, every developer I have worked with has at least one website that they were ashamed of, or at the very least wish they could redo. That might be due to the code they wrote being rushed due to time constraints, a design that was changed massively by the client during the review phase/after going live, or the developer having simply grown their skillset since the site was built and they know they could do better. 

This is in stark contrast to how non-human-built websites will always end up being produced. With a simple site builder, the layouts will never change, even if many users before have had issues using them. And, an AI site generator will have no shame or memory of bad code it has generated before, so will use it again – even if there are faster, cleaner, more efficient options that fit a user’s needs better.

Personalisation

When you ask an AI to make you something, it will attempt to do just that, and nothing more. That’s great, until you want that little something more, or there is a foreseeable need for something more. This is where a developer gets to shine, as not only do they know what they’re producing, but they can use prior knowledge of you as an individual/business, or other similar projects, to guide how they will develop the end product.

For example, we remade a website for an existing client late last year. A few weeks ago, this client came to us asking to include a pop-up on the website, where they could change the information periodically. From our experience with their previous website, we knew that they would eventually want more than one pop-up, maybe showing in different places and for different types of users. We knew that on their previous website, at certain times, you would get multiple pop-ups open at once, and would need to close all of them down before using the website. 

Knowing this past information, and being able to predict a future use-case that the client didn’t ask for originally meant that when we finished the work, and they saw what was produced, they were over the moon. Not only were they now able to do a lot more than they were originally expecting, but it also showed them that we knew their business needs, and were thinking about how they would use the system.

Precision

There are certain things that you expect whenever you visit a website. You expect a menu at the top of the page, you expect the scroll wheel on your mouse to move the page up and down, and on mobile, you expect three vertical bars to open the menu.  

Site builders are great for these sorts of expectations, because they will be practically the same on every website. They may have different colours or sizes, but they will all function the same, as you want the user to not have to guess how to use the website. But it’s when you want to do something a little more, and make your website stand out, that the system will fall flat on its face.

We have a handful of clients who use site builders and come to us when they want something they can’t do themselves. When they ask for layout changes that are finicky, the site builder may fight with what we want, but we can usually get it done without having to find ways around the limitations of the platform. 

But sometimes, they will ask for something like a pop-up, a contact form that automatically adds contacts to their mailing list, custom fee calculators, or the inclusion of a feature from another website which was built from scratch. 

These sorts of requests are the ones that highlight the limitations of site builders, and where AI site builders also struggle. 

Get in touch

If it’s time for you to update your website, and you want some sappy developers who love their craft to build it, we can help.

Email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call 0115 8965 300.