Now there are conflicting views, whether web design could be outsourced or not. Another view emphasizes that even though your basic web design strategy should stay in-house, many parts of a web design project can be outsourced.

Usability: Partly can be outsourced. Only when usability specialists participate in every project meeting and give feedback on every major design idea you get a perfect web presence. Thus, full-time usability staff should be part of every Web team. Also, the company's overall usability direction and methods must be managed by an in-house usability strategist. It is also very useful to request design reviews from outside usability experts since their fresh eyes often provide a perspective that is impossible to gain from the inside. It is easy to outsource a user questionnaire to a survey firm and to have a focus group company recruit usability test participants.

Illustration: Can be. Most illustrations can be outsourced to people with visual design talent. A site often needs so many different styles of illustration that a small in-house staff of artists will be insufficient.

Writing: Maybe. It is easy to outsource the writing of specific stories, product descriptions, press releases, and other textual content. Professional writers do not need to be on staff to write a good set of pages. The required writing style for the web is very different from the traditional writing style for paper publishing. If writers move back and forth between writing for online and for print, then print style will dominate their work and their Web pages will have low usability. Thus, there are great benefits to having full-time writers who write solely for the Web.

Copyediting: Yes; As long as you have a single style guide for your site, outside copyeditor can edit pages to comply with that style.

Translation: Yes; The linguistic aspect of creating an overseas site should be outsourced to professional translators. Since translators are not skilled in interaction design or usability, it will be necessary to subject the translated site to an international usability study which can be outsourced to a local usability specialist (but should be managed by the in-house usability strategist).

Software Development: backend Yes, business logic No; you should not implement your own operating system, database, HTTP server, encryption software, or programming and scripting languages. Similarly, it is best to outsource standard back-end software that does not determine your business processes or customer relationship. Examples include credit card verification (and other payment systems), inventory management, and search engines (though you may want to design your own user interface to the search engine's features, focusing the user on those features that help using your site). You need to keep control of your business logic software since that is the embodiment of your business model on the Internet. For example, if you implement a frequent-user bonus program, then you should have control over the rules used to decide what customers get what benefits.

Server Hosting: Yes; Response times are of utmost importance for Web usability, so the closer your server is to the main Internet backbones the better. Often, the best solution is to host your server at a well-connected datacenter rather than trying to pull enough T-3 lines into your own building.