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Website Design initial time & budget estimate
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Okay here I am Lamb to the slaughter. I am looking for names and contacts for web designer / programmer with a view to getting a website built.
I would appreciate if somebody could send me a template for putting together the proposal.
As a bit of background, I have attempted to build the site myself ( starting with absolutely no web experience) , and got so far with wordpress templates, widgets etc... it took an awful long time to do what I did - especially compared to anybody who knows what they are on about - however it was a very useful experience as at least I have some idea what people are talking about.
Thanks for taking your time with this and please PM with any contacts, companies etc that may be of use to me.
Thanks all0 -
The Corinthian wrote: »It's fixed in the same way as bandwidth with Web hosts is unlimited
Its like they cant spell 'unmetered'.0 -
@daithi74 i am a freelance web designer. you can check samples of my work by following the link below, if you like my design style, give me a shout!
Web Design Wicklow0 -
maxmarmalade wrote: »Thats very hard to estimate without a spec. I had a look through www.weslin.ie and I would say you are looking at 5k minimum to get a site like that.
That is a bit much I think and to be honest that is not even such a great looking site. The projects page is a bit of a disaster with those "floating menus"0 -
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going on what the op is - 2.5k would be the ball park for a very well built site complete with SEO and the functionality you have asked for. That 2.5k would also mean that your site would be scalable, so if you had other ideas that you wanted to do later on, the groundwork would already be in place to do so.
for 2.5k you would expect a very nice site. If you were flexible on design of it, I could see a developer doing that for the 1500-1700 mark easily.0 -
The Weslin site could be easily replicated in 2 days. One to design and one to populate.
What a ridiculous statement!
If you simply set out to replicated the design of the Westin site you MIGHT just manage to get the basic structure done in a day or two - if you were experienced enough.
It's clean design belies more than a little sophistication.
As for populating it in a day....complete and utter drivel.0 -
What a ridiculous statement!
If you simply set out to replicated the design of the Westin site you MIGHT just manage to get the basic structure done in a day or two - if you were experienced enough.
It's clean design belies more than a little sophistication.
As for populating it in a day....complete and utter drivel.
Actually, provided the content was ready, I'd have that site more or less complete in under a day, responsive and optimized for SEO. It takes me on average about 1-2 hours to have a theme built for WordPress from scratch, the rest is just adding content.0 -
Actually, provided the content was ready, I'd have that site more or less complete in under a day, responsive and optimized for SEO. It takes me on average about 1-2 hours to have a theme built for WordPress from scratch, the rest is just adding content.
When you say one day, do you mean 24 hours? Or do you mean an 'average working day'? (say, 8-9 hours).
Also, could you give me an hourly breakdown of how long each part of the project would take?
Imagine you're giving a cost proposal, or invoicing the client, and they ask for an hourly breakdown of work done.0 -
Love this thread. It's like suits versus developers.0
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When you say one day, do you mean 24 hours? Or do you mean an 'average working day'? (say, 8-9 hours).
Also, could you give me an hourly breakdown of how long each part of the project would take?
Imagine you're giving a cost proposal, or invoicing the client, and they ask for an hourly breakdown of work done.
Meh, it depends. I'd really rather not open my bag of tricks on how to develop a site in such a short time. Just take my word for it, if the motivation is there ($), it can be done in no time.
I have done some speed builds on an 8-9 hour day before, but my ideal work place is at home, so thats where I'll work for in this situation. My working day is when ever I feel like getting up till when ever I can justify calling it a day. So I would start at say 10am and work to 4/5am if I want/have to. My phone is turned off, and I work in complete silence with no distractions other than food, tea and cigarette breaks. What slows projects down is indecisive clients, or those who would unintentionally hold back on content, or don't answer their phones or get back to your emails. In freelance this is what drives up the price for most of my clients because I just end up fidgeting with the site. Anyways, that's off topic.
Rough break down of me working a fast ass site.
5 minutes setting up the hosting/emails on a shared hosting package. 5 minutes uploading WordPress and 10 configuring the server, db and wp including pretty permalinks and setting up jetpack etc. 30 mins at most.
1 hour getting the site laid out and styled in css. Another 30-45 mins converting that template to a Wordpress theme and making sure the blog/single/post pages are all styled properly. Another 15 or so mins downloading and installing different plugins to do the gallery stuff they want. That is provided I agreed that I would implement that into the site via an addon. I prefer not to use plugins, regardless of how well they are rated or needed, I'd much rather make my own. The rest of the day is just adding content at about 2-5 mins a page.
While I did say that I wouldn't open my bag of tricks, I will tell you that a huge portion of the 'professionals' in the industry use applications like Dreamweaver to build their sites. This would easily triple the time it takes to build a site for me. If I had to design the site, that project would also be a much lengthier one as there is a lot of back and forth with design compared to just building the design you are given.
Now, from my 10 or so years experience on boards.ie a reply such as mine is usually met with me being blindsided by some off-topic or random tangent of this reply. So let me get this straight. I would never set out to do a site in a day, but I'm positive I can do it as it is second nature to me.0 -
You can cobble together a functional site in a day, if you have experience. A great site takes much longer. Consider SEO, marketing, usability, etc. Horses for courses. The last 20% of the puzzle takes 80% of the time, and this is why the cheap website can represent poor value.
I can give you a website for €200, €1000 or €10,000 - and in the last year have made sites for all those budgets. The €200 and €10,000 sites will have superficial similarities, but will be very different. The €10,000 site may pay for itself by attracting a large multiple of the cost price in sales.0 -
But this is all returning to the previous point that we all know that it is more than possible to develop a site in a day. I've done it a few times, I even put together a very complex bespoke one in a weekend.Rough break down of me working a fast ass site.
However, this is not what we're talking about as it can only work like this if you already have the specifications pinned down or you're developing for yourself (and thus the specs are already in your head).
If not, when dealing with a real client, then distilling that information from them, takes time. Even for a simple brochureware site, the OP did not ask for an exact copy of the sites he listed, but that he "would like to emulate" them.
They're only a starting point for what he wants, and even if what he wants is not a gigantic deviation from this, how much time with the client do you think would be needed to pin this down (discover their specific requirements and then confirm them)? An hour, two, more?
This is something that ultimately could take anything between one hour and one hundred, because it's largely dependant on the client, not you. Some clients have difficulty expressing themselves. Some are not very technically minded or, frankly, intelligent. Some look for things that can't be done within budget or even in our quantum reality. Some just don't know what they want yet and have at best a vague top level overview. Devil's in the detail, after all.
And then they'll need to sign off on any design, which will require mock-ups, or prototyping in more complex projects, followed by 'tweaks' and changes before the design and underlying functionality is fixed and agreed to. How long there?
All presuming that no formal functionality or specification documents are required, which requires that you trust your client not to turn around later and claim that they had asked for something that you are pretty certain is in reality a new feature. How do you think feature creep happens?
Of course, you can do this part of the project for free. Just as you can work a 16 hour day and charge nothing more than if you worked 8 or 9 hours. You can get stuck in without pinning down any formal design or specification, based on a fixed price, play it by ear and just continue tweaking and changing everything until the client is happy that it's 'just right'.
But if so, you should do your maths before you do so, because you'll quickly find that you're better off getting yourself a McJob than staying in Webdev.
Otherwise, telling someone looking for quotes that there's only a day or two worth of work to it is pretty poor advice.0 -
The Corinthian wrote: »But this is all returning to the previous point that we all know that it is more than possible to develop a site in a day. I've done it a few times, I even put together a very complex bespoke one in a weekend.
I do admit, i did pass over most of the comments as I was just answering the OP's comments and reading from where I posted onwards.The Corinthian wrote: »However, this is not what we're talking about as it can only work like this if you already have the specifications pinned down or you're developing for yourself (and thus the specs are already in your head).
Well this is where maybe I work differently from other people. I make sure that those things are pinned down from the day I start my builds and I stick to those features that were agreed on and hand the site off with what was expected of me. Don't get me wrong, I would be more than happy to go back and add to it, but I am basing my points on the fact that we have everything ready do go (content) and we have agreed on what was needed.The Corinthian wrote: »If not, when dealing with a real client, then distilling that information from them, takes time. Even for a simple brochureware site, the OP did not ask for an exact copy of the sites he listed, but that he "would like to emulate" them.
They're only a starting point for what he wants, and even if what he wants is not a gigantic deviation from this, how much time with the client do you think would be needed to pin this down (discover their specific requirements and then confirm them)? An hour, two, more?
To be honest, emulating a site is much easier than designing a site from scratch. Working with most clients they say 'I like this and this'. Where as if you are given something to replicate with a twist, its much easier to know what the client wants, which in my books is the hardest part of getting the job done. When it comes to design you know yourself, how long is a piece of string. I was basing my project on the fact that a design is ready. Design for me can take weeks. As I said in an earlier post, there are no right answers and projects can go any way when it comes to design, but the build itself is straight forward if you know the right way to do things and a few tricks to speed up the build.
Also - All my clients are 'real clients', that comment comes off as you be patronizing.The Corinthian wrote: »This is something that ultimately could take anything between one hour and one hundred, because it's largely dependant on the client, not you. Some clients have difficulty expressing themselves. Some are not very technically minded or, frankly, intelligent. Some look for things that can't be done within budget or even in our quantum reality. Some just don't know what they want yet and have at best a vague top level overview. Devil's in the detail, after all.
Agreed!The Corinthian wrote: »And then they'll need to sign off on any design, which will require mock-ups, or prototyping in more complex projects, followed by 'tweaks' and changes before the design and underlying functionality is fixed and agreed to. How long there?
Well this is something that can go either way. I've been using Photoshop since 3(not cs3) and as far as design goes, a few years ago I realized that some things weren't possible with Photoshop designs, so I just started to build my designs so I wouldn't be stuck on a something that a client loved and I couldn't reproduce. This cut my build time in half.
Since I've been designing with code, any agency that I've come in contact with just labeled me an ameture. I just see it as cutting out the middle man. Wireframes of a site take minutes to do when you know how, and building up a color pallet and appending classes is a very versatile way to get a front end built in no time. for example <div class="redfont blackBG shadowontext outlinethisbox">. So when designing and signing off on different aspects of a build, you are literally building the site and including them section by section and that css you've built can be used elsewhere just by appending it instead of writing a new class for it.
Yes, the design process takes a little longer, but once its signed off on you have the thing built already. The more complex projects for me these days involve graphs(raphael.js), css animations and jQuery (I focus on frontend). Whats the point in me doing UX design when users cant see the work being produced with a static image? I recently came across a video on this, and I recommend it to everyone who I talk about front end to. Check it out here.
To focus in on what I was getting at, if I was to design the site, it would be a case of wireframing it in html/css, finding the right colours and fonts that the client likes, then design/developing the site from there. Just iterations on the parts they like. If the client answers with yes/no in a promptly manor, you'll be done in no time.The Corinthian wrote: »All presuming that no formal functionality or specification documents are required, which requires that you trust your client not to turn around later and claim that they had asked for something that you are pretty certain is in reality a new feature. How do you think feature creep happens?
I'm well aware of how feature creep happens, which is why I build fast. From personal experience(might not be for everyone), if you build it fast and don't give people time to start changing their minds, you get a much more focused project and a very fast turn around. I'm all for feature creep, it puts food on my table - but I let it happen when the project is done. Then, when they do have something they want to add on, I ask them to sit back and think about anything else they may want. I do bend over backwards for my clients and do everything they ask as fast as possible and to the best standards I am capable of. So by me building what they ask for as fast as possible, they will (most of the time) have what they asked for still fresh in their heads.The Corinthian wrote: »Of course, you can do this part of the project for free. Just as you can work a 16 hour day and charge nothing more than if you worked 8 or 9 hours. You can get stuck in without pinning down any formal design or specification, based on a fixed price, play it by ear and just continue tweaking and changing everything until the client is happy that it's 'just right'.
I charge my hourly rate, no matter if its a 2/6/8/16/24 hour day of work. I never give a fixed price, and my ball park figures are always 1000 or so give or take off what it comes in at. Most of the time its under, and that's what Ill charge. But one things for sure, a site is never really finished if you spot something when its live, its a matter of morals/principal to get it fixed.The Corinthian wrote: »But if so, you should do your maths before you do so, because you'll quickly find that you're better off getting yourself a McJob than staying in Webdev.
Otherwise, telling someone looking for quotes that there's only a day or two worth of work to it is pretty poor advice.
Well, this is it really. In your opinion its poor advice. I've met you before, I know you're a stand up chap and you know your stuff, but when I sit down to do something I cannot sleep until I have certain milestones under my belt. When I say I can have something to that standard built in a day or two I mean it and will stand by my word. Telling me I'm better suited to a 'McJob' when you don't know how my business relationships work, my monthly average income or my accomplishments, is to me, poor advice. I've lived and breathed this stuff for over a decade, unlike people who are in this for a quick buck. I said to the op it would take me a day or two - maybe it would take others a week.
Its actually a shame how the last weeks coming up to Christmas are shaping up as a few of the lads were going to try put on a marathon in Engine Yard around now building sites for charities with teams of 3-5 working on each site with a given time frame of 2 days. I would be able to put my money where my mouth is.0 -
TBH, I wasn't really replying to you for the bulk of that post and was saying 'you' more in the sense of 'one'.Well, this is it really. In your opinion its poor advice. I've met you before, I know you're a stand up chap and you know your stuff, but when I sit down to do something I cannot sleep until I have certain milestones under my belt. When I say I can have something to that standard built in a day or two I mean it and will stand by my word. Telling me I'm better suited to a 'McJob' when you don't know how my business relationships work, my monthly average income or my accomplishments, is to me, poor advice. I've lived and breathed this stuff for over a decade, unlike people who are in this for a quick buck. I said to the op it would take me a day or two - maybe it would take others a week.
The point I was making, as have others, is that development is only part of the billable process and many of the earlier posters were ignoring this - even you'll have to admit that your own post had to be later qualified.0
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