New website Design & Development Costs

sheesh

christ obvious troll is obvious.

how the hell did i get sucked in!!!!

Sonnenblumen

The Corinthian wrote: »

When asking for an estimate here, you should bare in mind that not all of the responders are qualified or have the experience necessary to do so. The principle mistake is that many will ignore everything other than the development; requirements, analysis, design, reviews, testing, deployment, training and inevitable change requests and maintenance will not get factored in.

Of estimates, I'd advise that you should rather be asking for a time and materials breakdown and not a financial estimate, as this will ultimately be of far greater use to you. Other than giving you the time needed to develop such a site (and thus give you an idea of how fast you can get to market), times should vary far less than rates (even with Irish Webdev SME's rates vary wildly) and allow you to better question why such-and-such a part of the project will take this long.

Nonetheless, I would echo the view that figures of €500 or €800 are wildly unrealistic. Without having looked at the functionality too closely, I'd roughly guestimate at between 150 and 200 hours work, including all that pesky non-development stuff, so €10k is probably not an unreasonable estimate.

Thanks for your constructive comments and helpful hints and yes I fully agree that quotes < € 800 are utterly ridiculous and fail to understand the project scope and requirements. But mind you, plenty of interest from some developers wishing to build a similar site for a lot less than € 20k. There's a good opportunity to earn realistic fees as well as add a quality reference site for portfolio. I've been there in my own field, I call it an 'opportunity cost' which pitch must carefully consider.

Sonnenblumen

sheesh wrote: »

christ obvious troll is obvious.

how the hell did i get sucked in!!!!

You're wrong pal. If I were you, stick to the knitting/stay out and refrain from throwing out wild accusations.

The Corinthian

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

But mind you, plenty of interest from some developers wishing to build a similar site for a lot less than € 20k.

I've no doubt there are plenty who would do it for less than €20k, but not having done proper analysis on your requirements I really couldn't tell you if this would be a good or bad price.

I've been on both sides of the tendering process. On the client side, my experience is that you will get everything from ridiculously high and low quotes; both extremes tend to be unrealistic. Good things to look at are what project management process the supplier proposes, how much effort they have put into actually addressing your requirements (the amount of 'padding' in these things is sometimes insane) and then, ideally aided by someone in the industry, assess how realistic some of their individual delivery estimates are.

Also watch out for honey traps; low price deals that have exorbitant change request or maintenance fees attached or little or no provision for bug fixing. Remember that once you sign off on a spec, any additions or changes are going to be extra.

Consider how you want to deal with the design phase; more prototyping (more expensive, but easier for a non-technical client to deal with) or more documentation based (cheaper, but harder for a non-technical client to deal with). This is important as the onus is on you to sign off on what you want - if you screw up on that, you'll be paying later.

And make sure full documentation is included as part of the deal. Without it, changing supplier later on can become expensive.

There's a good opportunity to earn realistic fees as well as add a quality reference site for portfolio. I've been there in my own field, I call it an 'opportunity cost' which pitch must carefully consider.

Don't overestimate the value of your site as a reference site. The more experienced and professional a developer or development house, the less they need another one and additionally, reference sites of little use if they are not around in two years time.

As with sweat equity, the promise of a reference site is something you will need to sell to a developer or development house. Just because you believe in what you're doing, doesn't mean anyone else is going to drink your cool-aid, after all and most experienced developers or development houses will get someone looking for free/cheap work done on the promise of the Next Big Thing(TM) several times a year, so we can afford to be sceptical.

The promise of additional work, such as a maintenance contract or phase 2+, probably is more attractive. However, even there you still need to sell to the developer or development house that such a promise is not simply conversation.

VMotion

The website in question does seem to have ecommerce features but they are available to registered users only http://www.bordnamonahorticulture.ie/retailers
Without knowing what is inside and what kind of back-office integration was provided it is pretty difficult to estimate. I do hope that they've managed to stay in €100K budget but could add about 20-30% on top depending on the amount of stakeholders and the approval process.

To the OP, this quote is absolutely irrelevant for you.
For your own website you can go for a premium Wordpress Theme (up to €100), and custom logo design (€500 at the most with stationary suite) and do all the integration yourself. Would look better then the majority of the websites in Irish part of the Internet-land if you have any-what usable IT skills. You can contact designers for a bespoke theme and get if for €3-€10K depending on your specs. Or you could even approach a developer with a premium theme of your choice and ask for pure integration. It will keep your costs under €1.5K.
Spell out what you are looking for and people will be much more able to help you.

- Regards

Sonnenblumen

VP

that's very useful and yes I realise now that the reference site contained more hidden areas than I realised and which I would not require (incl e commerce).

Seamless functionality with a high quality GUI are essential. On the otherhand, our current site which runs to several hundred pages, so I'm not looking for a basic brochure site but rather a very extensive resource with a simple yet effective CMS. I have been looking at various options/features for some time, and yes Drupla and/or Wordpress, are constantly coming up as probably the most likely or preferred platform.

I will probably hire an SME to help me prepare the technical brief.

Trojan

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

On the otherhand, our current site which runs to several hundred pages, so I'm not looking for a basic brochure site but rather a very extensive resource with a simple yet effective CMS.

Be careful of underestimating the time/cost of migrating your existing pages, it can take significant planning and implementation, depending on the type of data (content), the existing CMS (if any) and the page formatting.

rolion

hi,
just me in here...
how can one working from the back room of his office/house asks for 10-20k to prepare a web site like that !?? i mean,most of the stuff is known already,can be re-used,re-touched !!
it doesn't require new learning,new material,new software/hardware to be purchased !! only labour and sweat !!!
way off my understanding...

is like the good Celtic Tiger years,when an architect /engineer will ask for 10k to give you a plan for an extension...now,same guys doing it for 2.5k !
who's to be blamed ?? not the architect but the client that pays !!
i mean...us !

come on,is 2012 not 2008 ... today's Q is how much not when or how long !!

regards

The Corinthian

rolion wrote: »

how can one working from the back room of his office/house asks for 10-20k to prepare a web site like that !?? i mean,most of the stuff is known already,can be re-used,re-touched !!

Most of the stuff can be reused? Possibly, if you have the rights to it and the client does not mind a boiler plate design.

As to cost, it really comes down to how many hours it would take you and your rate. I'm not in Ireland, but would agree that Webdev rates have likely fallen, although there's a limit to how far any professional should allow that to happen before a McJob begins to look attractive.

Looking briefly at the example site, I guesstimated about 150 - 200 hours, most of which would not even be actual development and as Trojan pointed out would also require data migration.

How long would you think it would take then?

is like the good Celtic Tiger years,when an architect /engineer will ask for 10k to give you a plan for an extension...now,same guys doing it for 2.5k !
who's to be blamed ?? not the architect but the client that pays !!
i mean...us !

Blame the law of supply and demand. Economics 101.

Giblet

I'm sure the client doesn't want a guy in his back room / office of his house doing the job (the guys who tend to be on the lower end of the scale, not the 10k). You pay for everything and all the people involved. Business Analysts, Design, Support, Operations, Developers, all who need to be paid and all who will provide a quality of service that makes the 10k a bargain (10k is entry level for our clients, it's an order of magnitude bigger at least for the larger ones)

Sonnenblumen

Trojan wrote: »

Be careful of underestimating the time/cost of migrating your existing pages, it can take significant planning and implementation, depending on the type of data (content), the existing CMS (if any) and the page formatting.

Would one use a developer to migrate data? Is this cost effective use of a developer? Perhaps a junior developer?

If not, who and what might one expect to pay to migrate around 500 pages of current content (approx 60% currently in Wordpress and balance in Symphony) to new Drupal based site?

BarackPyjama

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Would one use a developer to migrate data? Is this cost effective use of a developer? Perhaps a junior developer?

If not, who and what might one expect to pay to migrate around 500 pages of current content (approx 60% currently in Wordpress and balance in Symphony) to new Drupal based site?

Someone with experience. You pay for experience.

Sonnenblumen

BarackPyjama wrote: »

Someone with experience. You pay for experience.

You can also overpay for poor performance. Would you care to indicate what charges (day rate for experience?) and how much time might one reasonably estimate would be required to migrate 500 pages?

Feathers

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Would one use a developer to migrate data? Is this cost effective use of a developer? Perhaps a junior developer?

If not, who and what might one expect to pay to migrate around 500 pages of current content (approx 60% currently in Wordpress and balance in Symphony) to new Drupal based site?

If I were an SME, I'd probably get in someone in transition year & throw them a few hundred to move the pages over.

But then, if they don't do it properly, you could be affecting the SEO benefits or accessibility requirements of your site — depending on the level of supervision you're going to put it. If either of those is an issue for you, might be worth a junior dev alright, as at least you can hold the development company to account if you've any issues.

Or, if you're your pages laid out properly & well templated at the moment, it might be cheaper & far faster to write a script to move the content into your DB. But then it depends on how much your changing your templates (if you currently have them/make good use of them).

Short answer — it depends (again). Can I ask, why not just put up a proper brief? The worst you're going to get is a couple of bad offers; best is someone might give you a quote on it. Know you said you're getting PMs, but if you're asking the question to begin with to generate discussion, presumably that discussion on what you're going to put out to tender can only be beneficial?

PCPhoto

I'm not a web programmer/designer ...nor do I have much technical knowledge when it comes to the world of websites...but...

OP.... from my experience of paying for websites to be created there are too many "wannabe's" out there, if you want a project done properly, research a well established design house and pay the fee (it will more than likely be excessive but unless you know and understand the world of web design you cannot weed out the good from the bad.)

I've plans for a website but cant afford to build it - I'm self employed and have the idea/concept in my head and on paper for 3-4years, I believe it is still an area which could explode, but could similarly flop ...when I was getting quotations a number of years ago I sat down with different design people and the cheapest quotation was €25K ...most expensive was €42K, needless to say I couldn't afford to use a years salary on creating a website and then try to save for a budget to promote/launch it and regular advertising of it.... I have not been lucky enough to find some young college genius - the feckers are making more money than me before they qualify.

The Corinthian

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Would one use a developer to migrate data? Is this cost effective use of a developer? Perhaps a junior developer?

If not, who and what might one expect to pay to migrate around 500 pages of current content (approx 60% currently in Wordpress and balance in Symphony) to new Drupal based site?

It doesn't really matter how many pages there are as what any developer will do is write a program/script that will pull the content from the old database and convert it into a SQL script that can be injected into the new one - so 50 or 500 is all the same.

Short answer is ideally someone who is already intimately familiar with the database format of both the old and the new database structures. If not at least one of them. The reason for this is that the bulk of the work otherwise is actually analysis of both, with the actual migration programming only being a small part of the process.

So a junior developer could do it if they're bright enough, but will take significantly longer than an experienced developer. And an experienced developer who's done migrations before will be the fastest of all. I'm sure you can do the math from this point on.

Feathers wrote: »

Can I ask, why not just put up a proper brief?

Because, at this stage, he's largely tyre-kicking and people are still responding to him with advice - which is fine by me.

ocallagh

You might find a freelancer who quotes a ridiculous figure of under 2k but two things are happening in this case.

1) Dev/Designer has no clue what they are doing and you end up wasting a lot of time and paying for it twice.

2) Dev/Designer has no clue how to charge for a website and ends up putting 100s of highly skilled hours in for a lot less than the minimum wage. In this case you get a great deal and best of luck finding this developer! I've been that developer in the past and I won't be making that mistake again.

8k - 10k ballpark is fair for a very well designed 70 page populated brochure site with a CMS and simple user registration/account features.

Sonnenblumen

The Corinthian wrote: »

Because, at this stage, he's largely tyre-kicking and people are still responding to him with advice - which is fine by me.

Which reminds me of the cliched car salesperson increasingly frustrated, desperate and demoralised, who accusingly blames the uninterested prospect for losing a sale yet fails to find any cause with poor pitching or inadequate selling.

If you've nothing constructive to add, then why bother us with lame moanings?

Sonnenblumen

ocallagh wrote: »

You might find a freelancer who quotes a ridiculous figure of under 2k but two things are happening in this case.

1) Dev/Designer has no clue what they are doing and you end up wasting a lot of time and paying for it twice.

2) Dev/Designer has no clue how to charge for a website and ends up putting 100s of highly skilled hours in for a lot less than the minimum wage. In this case you get a great deal and best of luck finding this developer! I've been that developer in the past and I won't be making that mistake again.

8k - 10k ballpark is fair for a very well designed 70 page populated brochure site with a CMS and simple user registration/account features.

Fair points but are you suggesting €60k-€80k is a fair ballpark for a 500 page site? Not looking for any student, sweat shop offer or moonlighter. This is not a nixer opp but finding a reliable resource with requisite range of technical and creative skills with a demonstrable portfolio of relevant work is a lot harder.

Giblet

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Fair points but are you suggesting €60k-€80k is a fair ballpark for a 500 page site? Not looking for any student, sweat shop offer or moonlighter. This is not a nixer opp but finding a reliable resource with requisite range of technical and creative skills with a demonstrable portfolio of relevant work is a lot harder.

Charging per page is a silly notion unless every page is uniquely styled. There would be x amount of templates to set up for the different layouts, and you pick which ones are applicable for each page. The content can be scripted easily from one database to another.

The Corinthian

ocallagh wrote: »

2) Dev/Designer has no clue how to charge for a website and ends up putting 100s of highly skilled hours in for a lot less than the minimum wage. In this case you get a great deal and best of luck finding this developer! I've been that developer in the past and I won't be making that mistake again.

That's a common enough error for freelancers, and even a few Webdev SME's, when they're still green. I was lucky in that I first found myself in such a project when I was an employee, so that while I may have been frustrated by it, at least I was still getting paid for all my time - it was my employer who took the hit.

It is however a very commonplace error, which I've seen others fall into many times, which underlines the importance of the requirements and design phase of any project.

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Which reminds me of the cliched car salesperson increasingly frustrated, desperate and demoralised, who accusingly blames the uninterested prospect for losing a sale yet fails to find any cause with poor pitching or inadequate selling.

If you've nothing constructive to add, then why bother us with lame moanings?

I wasn't moaning - as I said, I'm fine with it. And it was constructive, to someone else's question - this is not your thread, after all. Not to mention the advice on migration I gave in the same post, which certainly should be useful.

Seriously, you're not in a position to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Fair points but are you suggesting €60k-€80k is a fair ballpark for a 500 page site?

I don't think anyone would suggest that. You already have the content, which is already formatted in another CMS.

As I already posted, conversion of that content is done in such a way that it will make little difference if there are 50 or 500 pages of it (with caveats naturally), so as Giblet rightly pointed out you wouldn't be paying per page, when in reality you're really only using a limited number of page templates over and over again.

ocallagh

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Fair points but are you suggesting €60k-€80k is a fair ballpark for a 500 page site? Not looking for any student, sweat shop offer or moonlighter. This is not a nixer opp but finding a reliable resource with requisite range of technical and creative skills with a demonstrable portfolio of relevant work is a lot harder.

Sorry, I was wrong to quote the number of pages. It's templates that are important. In the site you linked to I can see at least a dozen very well designed templates are used. That's what you base your figure off.

Once you have your template as others have suggested populating the content can be outsourced and/or done with a script. A 70 page site or a 500 page site might come in at roughly the same price depending on how the client has their data arranged.

If you wanted 500 uniquely designed pages then 80k would be closer than 10k alright!

Sonnenblumen

This thread is not mine but was started by me with some hope and purpose of gaining some tips/useful insights into the financial scope, methodology of undertaking the development of a website similar to the referenced example. Of course a detailed brief would be available but I did not think it resonable or necessary to post or make available such information to unknowns on a public forum.

I prefer to determine my own shortlist and it then invite submissions. As we have no in-house expertise with a project of this scale, here was an opportunity to add to a learning curve, pick up some pointers etc and the importance of the client having good technical expertise/knowledge. In that regard the exchanges so far would indicate that we also need to retain an independent consultant to assist us with our dealings with the developers. For that reason alone, the thread has been very useful. This would reassure and protect our investment and ensure we are avoiding any honeypots or potential technical culdesacs etc for whatever reason not least our lack of technical knowledge.

So although some of the contirbutions have been very useful and these have been acknowledged, they are not only useful to me who originated this thread albeit for 'selfish' reasons, the replies/information may also be of use to others who find themselves in a situation similar to mine. In that situation, it serves no purpose to make references to 'tyre kickers' etc. The web is already full of dogs and it shouldn't be too difficult to determine when or if a poster is not being sincere.

Perhaps I'll come back when our programme of work has been completed and discuss a comparative review?

The Corinthian

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

So although some of the contirbutions have been very useful and these have been acknowledged, they are not only useful to me who originated this thread albeit for 'selfish' reasons, the replies/information may also be of use to others who find themselves in a situation similar to mine. In that situation, it serves no purpose to make references to 'tyre kickers' etc. The web is already full of dogs and it shouldn't be too difficult to determine when or if a poster is not being sincere.

It does serve a purpose to make references to 'tyre kickers' etc., but not to others who find themselves in a situation similar to yours - it serves those developers who may not be aware or experienced enough to identify such 'clients'. After all, this discussion is not simply for the benefit of you or potential stakeholders like yourself, but all who are involved, including less experienced developers.

Perhaps it was unfair to accuse you of tyre-kicking, but it's extremely commonplace; potential 'clients' who either on fora like this or directly seeking 'quotes' when in reality either they have no firm intention of going ahead with a project or are simply researching so they can better deal with an existing supplier. I've done it myself, I'm ashamed to admit.

So when someone comes looking for quotes and advice for free and they're still doing so several weeks (sometimes months) later, especially when some of the questions appear to have originated from another party, you eventually will come to the conclusion that you're wasting your time - if you're looking to land business, that it.

And looking at the respondents over the last few pages, of those who I would know to be 'serious' developers, almost all have simply stopped responding - probably because they thought what I said aloud.

Perhaps I'll come back when our programme of work has been completed and discuss a comparative review?

If you want a proper review, you probably should approach your short list directly rather than continue with this thread at this stage.

You know what kind of skills, services and pitfalls to look out for at this stage and have a pretty good idea of what is required. Draw up a brief and invite estimates - not fixed prices. If the company/freelancer in question is good enough, they will be able to give you a fixed price, or something akin to one, once you've done requirements and design and it should not be more than about 15% above the estimate.

Sonnenblumen

The Corinthian wrote: »

Perhaps it was unfair to accuse you of tyre-kicking, but it's extremely commonplace; potential 'clients' who either on fora like this or directly seeking 'quotes' when in reality either they have no firm intention of going ahead with a project or are simply researching so they can better deal with an existing supplier. I've done it myself, I'm ashamed to admit.

So when someone comes looking for quotes and advice for free and they're still doing so several weeks (sometimes months) later, especially when some of the questions appear to have originated from another party, you eventually will come to the conclusion that you're wasting your time - if you're looking to land business, that it.

And looking at the respondents over the last few pages, of those who I would know to be 'serious' developers, almost all have simply stopped responding - probably because they thought what I said aloud.

If you want a proper review, you probably should approach your short list directly rather than continue with this thread at this stage.

AFAIK Boards does not purport to be a business leads generation forum? Sure some business may accrue to certain individuals but surely that's hardly the basis for Boards popularity. Perhaps there are different rules within this particular forum?

Serious developers have free choice, and if the discussion is not to their liking why don't they simply not get involved? Nobody owes them a living and expecting to earn one here is simply wrong. As to their seriousness, I would question that, virtually all prefer to remain anonymous, and one wonders why? Afterall, if they have no doubt as to their own credibility and competencies, why would one not make more or greater use of the sigs rules for self promotion purposes? I think we know the answer!

To end on a positive note, I do appreciate that some of your contributions have been very helpful.

The Corinthian

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

AFAIK Boards does not purport to be a business leads generation forum? Sure some business may accrue to certain individuals but surely that's hardly the basis for Boards popularity. Perhaps there are different rules within this particular forum?

Com'on; different people use Boards to different ends. Personally I enjoy debate and argument and the opportunity to blow off steam, but others use Boards for business purposes (I have in the past, but it makes little sense for me to do so now) - you've done so for business purposes after all, so you can't be so naive that many of those who answered here were not probably angling for work (some of the responses were pretty obvious in this respect).

Serious developers have free choice, and if the discussion is not to their liking why don't they simply not get involved?

As you may have read in my last post, some who had been involved withdrew.

Nobody owes them a living and expecting to earn one here is simply wrong.

Just as no one owes you free consultancy or to simply advise you as you want.

As to their seriousness, I would question that, virtually all prefer to remain anonymous, and one wonders why? Afterall, if they have no doubt as to their own credibility and competencies, why would one not make more or greater use of the sigs rules for self promotion purposes? I think we know the answer!

Then by all means post your true identity and allow 'serious' developers to contact you directly, without all this anonymous nonsense. As I said, you've probably taken things as far as you can here, without producing an actual brief and engaging with suppliers on a more formal basis.

To end on a positive note, I do appreciate that some of your contributions have been very helpful.

I hope they have been, just as I hope that some of those you did not find helpful have been for others.

Sonnenblumen

Update: Dev co selected, and with full agreement on project scope, architecture and all deliverables, now underway. Cost: a smidge under € 10k (excl VAT).

CMS: Drupal.

Exciting times.;)

allaboutclicks

I've just read the first and last posts on this so I'm sorry if I've totally missed the point but are you saying that bordnamona site cost €10k?

I know it's lazy but this thread is 6 pages long...

Feathers

allaboutclicks wrote: »

I've just read the first and last posts on this so I'm sorry if I've totally missed the point but are you saying that bordnamona site cost €10k?

I know it's lazy but this thread is 6 pages long...

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Anyone willing to estimate what it might cost to do a site similar to: http://www.bordnamonahorticulture.ie/ ?

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Update: Dev co selected, and with full agreement on project scope, architecture and all deliverables, now underway. Cost: a smidge under € 10k (excl VAT).

CMS: Drupal.

Exciting times.;)

Surely even with these two posts you can see that the OP asked for a rough quote based on a site & then came back with the price he(?) secured.

allaboutclicks

So that would be a yes then.

Interesting.

TPM

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Update: Dev co selected, and with full agreement on project scope, architecture and all deliverables, now underway. Cost: a smidge under € 10k (excl VAT).

CMS: Drupal.

Exciting times.;)

Thanks for the update and getting back to us, its always mice to see how things in the threads work out

sheesh

Good luck with the site

Do I get a prize for guessing correctly?:D

Feathers

allaboutclicks wrote: »

So that would be a yes then.

Interesting.

Well actually it'd be a no — we don't know how much the Bord na Móna site cost them.

Sonnenblumen

sheesh wrote: »

Good luck with the site

Do I get a prize for guessing correctly?:D

As I type, I guess your prize is in the post:D Congratulations

Scotty #

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Update: Dev co selected, and with full agreement on project scope, architecture and all deliverables, now underway. Cost: a smidge under € 10k (excl VAT).

CMS: Drupal.

Exciting times.;)

€10k+VAT for a Drupal brochure site with you supplying all the photos and text seems extraordinarily expensive to me.

Any chance you would post the URL when it's done?

The Corinthian

Scotty # wrote: »

€10k+VAT for a Drupal brochure site with you supplying all the photos and text seems extraordinarily expensive to me.

List out, from what came out of the thread, what the general requirements for this project are and then suggest how many hours the whole lot will take, without forgetting the other, non-development, stages of the project, if you are so certain that it's expensive.

You'll find those who did read the thread and did a few calculations, and had a clue, all pretty much came to the same ballpark figure and I'm glad to say that Sonnenblumen seems to have taken on board much of the advice given to him.

Scotty #

How did me saying it "seems" expensive become me being "so certain" it's expensive?

Ok I'll have a stab... tell me what I'm missing....

1. Install/Configure Drupal - .25 hours.
2. Design/develop custom template. - 8-24 hours.
3. Copy/format all text/photos (Supplied by client, in digital format of course - 70 pages?) - 16-24 hours.
4. Build menu structures - 6-8 hours.
5. Configure search/weather/gallery/etc modules - 8-16 hours.
6. Test/Finalise - 16-24 hours.

I would think somewhere between 55-72 hours but I'd imagine someone with a good workflow would be much quicker. So I'm guessing Giblet&Co are charging €150/hr or thereabouts? Or, are they taking longer? Or, are they doing work not listed above?

Sonnenblumen

Scotty # wrote: »

€10k+VAT for a Drupal brochure site with you supplying all the photos and text seems extraordinarily expensive to me.

Any chance you would post the URL when it's done?

Well in fairness it involves more than a brochure site and although € 10k +/- might seem expensive (most quotes were +/- € 4k of this range, some were <€5k and some > €20k!!). It was very easy to dismiss the proposals (€5k and €20k) as these tended to be poorly articulated.

The selected company submitted a very detailed and well articulated proposal, and as someone who earns a living from design, I was more than interested in the detail of a 20+ day project costing on average €400/day.

Of course it is relatively easy to find a company to do it for less, but to be honest, most had failed to convince or inspire me with any confidence not matter how much or how little the proposed fee charge (several proposals were fluffy and introverted, weak on business case analysis, and lacked marketing credibility). The winning bidder won my confidence at an early stage, and if I get what is expected, I will have considered the fees well earned and wholly justifiable.

Let's wait and see what comes out in the wash, and I will be happy to post the url.

28064212

Back-end? Training?

The Corinthian

Scotty # wrote: »

Ok I'll have a stab... tell me what I'm missing....

The requirements.

While Sonnenblumen was speaking fairly generally and not in detail, if you actually read the thread you'll quickly realize that there is a bit more to what his project entails.

Consultancy Rule #1: Shut up and listen (or read in this case) before anything else.

@Sonnenblumen was any of the advice that was given to you here useful?

Scotty #

Thanks for the excellent reply Sonnenblumen...

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

The winning bidder won my confidence at an early stage, and if I get what is expected, I will have considered the fees well earned and wholly justifiable.

Yes, online presence is so important these days for any business I suppose €10K is a small price to pay for a presence of high standard, particularly if you already have an established business. For a Startup to pay out €10K for their website would be a much tougher decision. I paid €15k for a catalogue site a few years ago for a new company I had started. I found it to be a total waste of money. The site functioned exactly as I spec'ed but the design and UI were terrible. In end the site failed (not due to the design) but it could have failed for a lot less .

I do think there are some guys out there building excellent sites at the lower end of the price scale though and I think there is a market need for them. Likewise there are some cowboys at the higher end (like all trades I guess). The hard part is figuring out which is which.

Best of luck with the site.

The Corinthian wrote: »

Consultancy Rule #1: Shut up and listen (or read in this case) before anything else.

In your previous reply you twisted what I had said into something else and now you are telling me I should shut up? Here's a rule for you... attack the post and not the poster! Maybe as a moderator on here you should abide by it!

I read the entire thread before I posted. Am I not allowed think the quotes were expensive or just not allowed say it? (I don't actually want an answer!)

The Corinthian

Scotty # wrote: »

In your previous reply you twisted what I had said into something else and now you are telling me I should shut up? Here's a rule for you... attack the post and not the poster! Maybe as a moderator on here you should abide by it!

I did attack the post and not the poster, although in the case of Sonnenblumen earlier in the thread I'll have to admit that I was probably a bit unfairly harsh on him.

As to your post, for example, you cite content in "digital format". However, if you'd read the thread, you would have realized that this content is currently in the database of their existing brochureware site, so migrating this data is not going to be as straightforward as one might hope.

Then, of course, despite my specifically suggesting you include T&M for non-development stages of the project, you only covered development, deployment and testing. You included absolutely no requirements gathering, no solution design and apparently do not believe that any kind of specification is needed. Less said about any SLA the better. If you had read the thread, you would see that I cited these non-development stages earlier.

Requirements gathering in particular is important, because Sonnenblumen specifically stated, again had you read the thread, that he was "not looking for a basic brochure site but rather a very extensive resource". As such 16 hours may well not cut it for 'configuring' modules and galleries, because it is quite likely that actual programming will be required, rather than being able to simply use out of the box plug-ins.

I could go on, but even if you include the above into an estimate and the hours required easily double or even triple. So, no, I do not believe you read the entire thread before you posted.

Scotty #

Ahh so you were suggesting the post 'shut up', not the poster... I see

I'm glad to see you would expect all the criteria I've listed AND all the criteria you've listed to be included for €10K though.

Sonnenblumen

The Corinthian wrote: »

The requirements.

While Sonnenblumen was speaking fairly generally and not in detail, if you actually read the thread you'll quickly realize that there is a bit more to what his project entails.

Consultancy Rule #1: Shut up and listen (or read in this case) before anything else.

@Sonnenblumen was any of the advice that was given to you here useful?

There were some very useful contibutions/points raised earlier including some from your good self which AFAIK, I did acknowledged and will happily do so here again. I will not list them now, but certainly the various posts drew my attention to pinning down the deliverables, this was highlighted in some discussions which I subsequently had with various designers, that the fees were for a solution and not X mandays. Other elements which were also captured included Training & dev, manuals, SLA, ongoing site management, updating etc.

I have various options x days year or € X/hour. This is find and the ongoing revenue for the dev co is smart, and isn't a problem for me in return for peace of mind.

What does irk me still is when I compare my briefing experiences to the more professionally developed graphic design buisness, web dev cos have a lot of ground to make up to be comparable to the more structured, albeit more developed practices typically encountered in graphic design consultancy. I was also a little surprised to see so many web dev cos overly rely on the more technical aspects of their businesses/project methodology/inputs, and failing to see the bigger picture and the truer broader value of web development as a business development solution for a client and simply another technical brief/project. Perhaps 'empathy' might apply here?

Anyways, I'm excited and the team doing the work are also fired up, so hopefully we will be thrilled with the outcomes. Time will tell.;)

The Corinthian

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

What does irk me still is when I compare my briefing experiences to the more professionally developed graphic design buisness, web dev cos have a lot of ground to make up to be comparable to the more structured, albeit more developed practices typically encountered in graphic design consultancy. I was also a little surprised to see so many web dev cos overly rely on the more technical aspects of their businesses/project methodology/inputs, and failing to see the bigger picture and the truer broader value of web development as a business development solution for a client and simply another technical brief/project. Perhaps 'empathy' might apply here?

A lot of smaller WebDev outfits (<10 people) tend to grow from a one or two man operation originally, where the initial emphasis was either graphic design or programming. As they grow, the first resources they add are either graphic design or programming that were originally missing, and functions such as project management or business analysis are not a priority until much later. Often this lack of demand is client-driven, as clients either do not see the value of such roles or even consider them an unwelcome extra cost.

This results in the project management or business analysis functions being carried out by someone who no background in either and this will show in the lack of professionalism and competence displayed in these roles - even here we've seen responses from some people that betrayed their lack of attention to what you were seeking to achieve.

A good BA will be able to distil the often unspoken wishes of a client into a workable solution that can be understood by the creative and technical teams building it, as well as sanity check those wishes and help a client refine their business model.

Anyways, I'm excited and the team doing the work are also fired up, so hopefully we will be thrilled with the outcomes. Time will tell.;)

Good luck and hope it works out.

Sonnenblumen

I haven't been around here for ages, I'm just popping by to give an update. Due to operational reasons at my end (simply too busy) delayed the project start. Now entering its second month of development and although the end is in sight there is still a considerable amount of work to be done.

All development work is almost complete, graphics is very advanced and content migration is underway.

Its been a huge learning exercise for me, and despite some initial nervousness, I am so glad that I made the right choice and selecting a very good and young development company. Using Drupal for the CMS has been a revelation, despite having some initial fears and uncertainty concerning its ease of use and apparent clunky functionality, I have to say my experience has been very positive. The sensible structure and performance of Drupal really excels, easy to update and for content management it is a doddle etc.

Yes as project end nears, there will be the training to look forward to soon as well as all of the documentation. And although it has taken more time to get where we are, I am convinced we will end up with a superior end product and a site that will certainly exceed my expectations and hopefully become a very valuable business development tool.

Hopefully the next time, I'll be inviting feedback/comments from the experts.

Happy New Year to all.:)

Sonnenblumen

new site now live: www.owenchubblandscapers.com

SalteeDog

Nice job. Looks the business.

irishdude11

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

new site now live: www.owenchubblandscapers.com

Very well implemented site, looks and feels professional which is all important.

Trojan

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

new site now live: www.owenchubblandscapers.com

Thanks for following up, love to see that. The site looks pretty good, really clean and crisp from a design point of view.

There's two main pieces of advice I'd have for you:

(1) add a clear call to action, i.e. "Sign Up Here", "Call Us Today", etc.

(2) It could do with a bit of love from an SEO - most urgently in the page titles.

Hope that feedback is of use