The trend of DIY!
The term DIY, otherwise called as Do It Yourself, is a growing trend amongst the current generation. Name any aspect and you are sure to find something related DIY videos on the internet. Not only do these activities enhance the creativity of the makers, but they also save up a lot on those which would have been chargeable under any expert help. Nevertheless, all of these DIY activities seem suitable for non-technical stuff, but once things come to the technical part the same becomes a bit debatable.
Just because you know something in DIY does not mean that you would do everything of your own. Therefore, keeping up with this dilemma in the mind, the article discusses further the various pros and cons of DIY design and how can the preferences be made based on the situation.
The pros of DIY
The following are the pros of DIY designs and are hence preferred by a major chunk of the people:
- Savings
Whenever it comes to designing something from an external agency, costs get added up to it on various fronts, like making, convenience, service to name a few. In case if the agency turns out to be a reputed one, then be ready to bear a big hole in the pocket and spend highly for the perfect quality.
However, when the same is done in DIY, not only does this excess cost get cut-off, but also you gain more control over the final work and not get confused with the differing opinions that would be provided by the experts. Though some initial investment might be required in getting the DIY materials and online guidance, still that would be much lesser than the overall cost to be borne in the former case.
- To new learnings
Of course, when something theoretical is given a practical application, new things are bound to get ingrained in the mind. Thus, all of these DIY activities enhance both the creativity and learning curves of the individual. Whenever you visit some kind of design workshop, you would be learning up new theoretical stuff from there and once they are applied, the same gets polished and clarified. Thus, with every DIY, you would be checking off another fulfillment and upgrading the existing skills to the next level.
- More iterations
Every design when given the final and physical shape does not turn out to be the perfect one in the first go. It would be requiring further iterations as per the requirement and in case of professional help, every iteration would charge back additional costs. But if the same is done in DIY, those would not be incurred and on the other hand, new learnings would be incorporated with each. Thus, the number of iterations can be increased until you finally reach out to the satisfactory results and not have to worry much about extra investment.
- Potential income source
Once you become a certified DIY professional in some particular design field, it opens up the avenue for setting up new business channels, where you can regularly upload the videos online and get paid. Alternatively, you can conduct online DIY classes and train the interested ones on the basic concepts and ideation. Thus, these upgraded skills turn out to be a potential income source in the long run.
The cons of DIY
The following are the cons of DIY designs and thus needs to be given a thought before moving forward with the process:
- Lack of warranty
In case when you employ expert help for some activity, they provide a warranty period within which you can do further repairing on the same thing freely. However, under DIY you would be forfeiting the entire benefit and thus would have to look yourselves for different sources of repairing. This becomes very problematic in technical matters, like the repair of some electrical gadget or pipe in the house. In severe cases, you might end up spending more money than expected.
- Lengthy procurement process
In DIY, procuring materials is a very challenging job and lack of prior experience just keeps increasing the waiting period. Also, you may not be fully aware of the requisite quality of the raw materials and face difficulties in selecting the finest one. But in the case of expert help, the period gets reduced by many factors as the skilled labor would be having various connections in the market and experience to get the stuff easily.
- High investment in the time
No doubt that DIY enhances the creativity of the individual, but it asks for a huge investment of time to complete the entire job and simultaneously learns about the same. Whereas, the same thing gets completed within a much lower time when the external agency is involved. Therefore, for urgent projects with a strict timeline, going for DIY would not be a suitable option, and falling back to contingency plans in case of urgency would not be feasible.
- Quality of work
At the end of the day, when it comes to the quality of work, the external agency stands above DIY due to the very fine finishing given to the activities. The same would also get accepted on the commercial stage, as their definition of quality stays in line with that of the market.
Clearing out the dilemma
Thus, the pros and cons of DIY have clearly been defined in the entire content. Based on it, DIY should be followed only in the following cases:
- The work is purely non-technical, like making handmade designs of wall hangings and many such.
- The end-user would be the individual itself and thus finest quality would not be an important aspect.
- The cost of investment would be much lesser.
In the following cases, it is always better to go for external help rather than choosing DIY:
- The work is a combination of technical and high complexity and requires expert help for solving out the problems.
- The end-user would be someone else and the quality of work matters a lot.
- The cost for the project is high and no risk can be taken in terms of extra fees or more iterations on the same work.
Thus, weigh all of these factors very properly and then choose for DIY as per the demand of the situation.
