The Survey For People Who Make Websites, 2010

The annual Survey for People Who Make Websites from our friends at A List Apart has gone up, and I encourage you to take ten minutes to participate. This survey is the only source of information about our industry, and by taking it, you benefit us all. Here's what they have to say about it:

In 2007, our conference division, An Event Apart, hired a research team to provide facts about the web design profession and those who practice it. We wanted to know who exactly our famous slogan, “for people who make websites,” was talking about. What were our kind of people’s salary ranges, titles, working conditions, educational backgrounds, gender, ethnicity, and so on? And what effect, if any, did one statistic have on another? For instance, did gender have an influence on salary? Was there a connection between educational background and job satisfaction? Did web professionals who worked at start-ups have the same titles as those who worked at universities and libraries?

Imagine our surprise when the researchers came back empty-handed. Nobody, they informed us, had ever done even the most basic research on web designers and developers. Not in 1995, when the commercial web took off. Not in 1997, when Amazon forever altered retail and publishing. Not in 1998, when the browser wars peaked, or 1999, when J-Lo used “Google” as a verb in an otherwise unremarkable romantic comedy, and everyone in the audience laughed knowingly. From boom to crash, Web 1.0 to Web 2.0; from the press’s ten-years-late discovery of blogging to the overvaluation of Facebook and Twitter. At no time had the web stood still, and at no time had the press or academics expended even one brain cell trying to figure out who was responsible for this world-changing whirlwind of creativity and innovation.

— The ALA 2010 Web Design Survey

If you've never heard of the survey before, check out last year's results to get an idea of what it's all about. And then, please, participate in this year's survey.