By Gary Rawlings, LwebG
Since I hung out my first shingle in 1998 as “Eclectic Visions”, I’ve enjoyed thousands of positive client interactions. The client gets what he or she wants at a price he or she can afford and they’ve enjoyed some online success. Some have enjoyed a tremendous amount of online success!
Unfortunately, I’ve also endured a few less-than-positive client interactions and each of them resulted in learning experiences for both of us - the web designer and the customer.
Now my goal is to help everyone whose job it is to deal with their employer’s website enjoy only positive experiences as they go about the process of maintaining, developing or redeveloping a website.
Point 1: How to choose your web design company
It isn’t easy, especially if you don’t understand web terminology and most web design companies have become pretty good at talking the technical talk. Problem is, we don’t realize that we might be talking over a prospect’s head.
It’s because that’s the world in which we – web design guys – live and make our living. It’s the nature of the technology revolution and there isn’t much anyone can do about it.
The solution for you, though, is to not be afraid to ask questions. Don’t hold back if you have any question marks at all because you’re going to need to understand all the elements and ramifications written into that company’s proposal – and all the other companies’ proposals – if you’re going to make the best decision for your company (and your job security).
So what are the best criteria? Let’s start with longevity. The attrition rate for web designers is horrendous. At least 90% of startup web design companies fail within 12-24 months. So look for a company that’s been around for awhile. Typically, your web company will have hosting data, domain registration credentials and a host of additional passwords relating to your website.
Do you have copies of that information? If not, and your web company folds, you’re in for a wild ride when you try regaining full control of your online data.
Check out their portfolio. Keeping in mind the fact that good web designers create websites the buyer wants him to build and sometimes the end result isn’t stellar because of client wants and needs. We’ve had some impressive websites take a turn for the worse when there is disagreement among the client’s ranks that results in some rather off-the-rails requests.
But in my opinion, the most important thing you can do is check the prospective web company’s references. You’d be amazed at how rarely that happens.
Point 2: Estimate vs. Expectations.
Typically, a web company provides potential clients with estimates based upon a series of interviews or information-gathering exercises. Upon completion of those exercises, they will provide you with an estimate.
Most web companies state something to the effect that the estimate does not “represent a fixed cost.” They do this because an estimate is just that…an estimate. Purchasing a website is nothing like the purchase of an automobile, suit, or home.
In the case of an automobile, the seller has a base price from which to work. This base price includes the cost to actually build the car, the cost to ship it to the dealership, the profit for the company that built it, the profit for the dealership and the salesperson’s commission. These are costs and processes that are clearly defined from manufacture to sale and when you drive away in your new car, everyone behind the sale of that car know how your money is to be divided up. There is no guesswork.
In the case of a custom website, there is a ton of guesswork. Take, for example, the creative process. Contracts vary, but in most cases, a prospect is presented with a plan to develop the online creative that includes a couple of mockups and a couple rounds of revisions. In such cases, if all goes as planned, the cost the agency estimated initially – based upon their experience - turns out to be the cost the customer ends up paying for the creative process.
But in some cases, at this point things can go awry. Some customers have a hard time making a final decision when it comes to the creative. Why? Some people seek out the opinions of others before giving final approval to the creative and while sometimes outside feedback is a good thing, but most of the time, it is not a good thing.
You’ve heard the old adage that “opinions are like ******** - everyone has one” and when someone gives you their opinion, “consider the source” before incorporating his or her idea into your online strategy.
If you show a design to five people, assuming that they are credible sources, you’re going to get five different opinions. It, then, would be up to you to either discard their opinions altogether or selectively incorporate their ideas into your design. But either way, you’re going to have to notify your web company that you’re going to need some additional changes to the design. And that’s when they send you a change order and a revised cost projection that can range from a few dollars to several hundreds of dollars, thus screwing up your budget.
Your cost overrun can be relatively limited or quite excessive depending upon when you request a design change and that’s because of the process that has to be followed to convert a design to an actual web page.
Generally, a web designer will create wireframes. A wireframe is a page-for-page, plain text model of the structure and functionality of a website. Often a wireframe consists of rough sketches done by hand.
When a customer approves the wireframes, the web designer begins the design process using Photoshop or something similar. As he or she is creating the design, he or she does so incorporating several layers – the purpose of which is explained later in this article.
So when that design is complete, you visually see what your web page is going to look like, although that visual representation may be the sum of ten or more layers in the native file (psd, ai, etc.) And if your contract calls for additional design mockups, your web designer will create an additional design for you, based upon the same process.
After a customer makes his or her design choice and completes any tweaking that is required, the web designer begins the Markup Process. Changes you make to your design can be made easily and inexpensively until we reach this point in the process.
The Markup Process requires a lot of time from the web designer because it is literally the digitizing of the artwork into html-friendly code. Without the Markup Process, intricate functionality is impossible and the slow page load speed makes the website unusable.
All too often, web design customers don’t take the process seriously until the markup has been completed and that’s a very bad – and expensive – time to be making design changes. Even a minor change that could have been made for little or no cost during either the wireframe or design process, becomes an expensive proposition if you wait until the markup is either under way or completed.
So my tips for today are:
Before the design process begins, surf the web. It is best to limit your search to competitive companies, but you can look at websites from any industry. Look at their colors, their online structure, their navigation, their use of photography/video and their use of other graphics. Find out what you like and what you’d like the web company to emulate for your website. Then share that with your web design company’s representative or web designer. This process saves a great deal of time and guesswork and ensures that the design process is a positive one.
Take each step in the design process seriously. Ask questions. Take your time and think things out from multiple perspectives – customers, staff, trusted friends and prospective customers. Once you have really thought things through, the result will be exactly what you were expecting.
Remember that designing a website isn’t anything like designing a book or magazine because of a lot of reasons, including:
o The web uses 3 colors - Red, Green and Blue (RGB), while print uses 4 colors – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black). That means that it is impossible to create an exact color match with a web element against a print element.
o There are many different web browsers being used today, including Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera, to mention only a few. A web design company will create a design that works well in the most commonly used browsers but it is not possible to create one design that looks great on all browsers. AOL caused many sleepless nights in the web design community and we all cheered when it died!
o There are many different versions of the web browsers in use today. People sometimes update their version but often they don’t do it until software they wish to install requires it.
o OS (Operating System) usage varies tremendously. As of May, 2014, Windows 8 is used by 16% of users, Windows 7 – 55.2%, Vista – 1.2%, NT - .2%, Windows XP – 7.3%, Linux – 5.1%, Mac – 10%, and Mobile – 4.2%.
o There are literally hundreds of different screen sizes in use today and every Internet user can change almost everything about the way they see web pages within those hundreds of screen sizes.
o And users can change their fonts, too.
Due to all the issues above, it is IMPOSSIBLE to make a website look exactly the same as your mockup did on very many computers. You can get as angry and frustrated as you want, but that won’t change the facts, unfortunately. Because that’s the way it all works!
Next week – Developing the Right Online Strategy
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