[Tuxaloosa] Web design opinions requested
Stewart Dean
studean at comicnet.net
Fri Feb 12 18:27:20 UTC 2010
Thanks for the info! Let me lay all my cards on the table: My parents
wanted a website for their Real Estate company. At the time, I was
swamped at the office, so they hired an advertising agency to create the
website for them. They defined the parameters and the company got to
work (or so my parents assumed). The contracted price was, I believe,
$4,500 and they wanted half up front -- you know, for all the costs
associated in setting up a website on somebody else's server and all...
7 months later, my parents got a reasonably basic Joomla install (and
it's been a few years since I poked Joomla with a stick, so I'm not sure
if there are any unorthodox extensions included) with a $37 template for
their $2,250. That's when I got involved... Nothing about this site
seems worth the 2K -- certainly not the time they put into it or the
template that we almost had to force them to update (header was bigger
than the content, making the website useless on a netbook). They claim
my parents didn't give them enough information to fill out the site, but
it's a CMS. Put the site up, show them how to update, and if they don't
like it, they have nobody to blame but themselves.
Now they feel that they have somehow earned the $2,250 for all the time
they put into the website that took them away from other clients. Think
about that for a second -- they complained that my parents weren't
giving them enough information to create the website. Do they expect me
to believe that they just kept working on it anyway? Or maybe their
programmer works out of the back of a cab with the meter running...
I explained very politely that I happened to be gainfully employed as a
web designer/programmer, and I know how much work he put into the
website. I even pointed out where he purchased the template (but it's
just as likely that they didn't pay for it and just pulled the files
from the demo site). I pointed out the flaw in the logic that said they
did a lot of work even though they claim they had no way of knowing what
work needed to be done. I requested that they refund 2000 of the 2250
because 25/hour seems more than generous for the output. They didn't
secure the website* or spell check any of the pages. They didn't even
read the copy to make sure it made some sort of sense... And this was
an ADVERTISING AGENCY. "The customer is always right" is crap. The
customer pays people to be right so they don't have to learn how to be
right themselves. If they wanted to be right, they wouldn't need
somebody else to do the work for them.
You'd think that an ad agency would have as their primary objective
"make the client look good". Not "make the client look like they failed
kindergarten"...
Stu.
* Tinybrowser was the culprit. Check any Joomla sites for
"plugins/editors/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/tinybrowser/upload.php"
and move or disable that stuff... No login is required to use it, and
you can upload arbitrary files and rename them for malicious intent. It
won't let you upload php files directly, but you can upload a file and
use the "rename" feature to end up with something that will work. If
you successfully manage to rename a file to an invalid (by tinybrowser's
terms) extension, instead of deleting the file, it just doesn't display
it in the list. I ended up installing dbkiss.php to manually add an
admin account for myself...
On 2/12/2010 11:40 AM, Erik Hanson wrote:
> take a look at what other joomla freelancers are charging and take it
> from there:
> http://www.getafreelancer.com/projects/by-job/Joomla.html
>
> I have done some Joomla work (I absolutely love joomla - but you
> already seem sold on it, so i wont gush) for a few places/people in
> town. I always feel bad charging some of the fees that I have seen
> on-line (one place wanted to charge $200 to apply a template (!?!)),
> and wind up going for a cheap hourly rate (these are
> friends/acquaintances we are talking about here - not just businesses
> that contacted my for my (cough) expertise). I enjoy the work; and,
> lets admit, Joomla's not a difficult bit of labor.
>
> that being said, this is what pricing has looked like to me in the past:
>
> setup (ftp to host, setup mysql, initial config): $100 - $200
>
> apply a template: $50 - $150 - this should include searching for the
> right template on site-ground/joomla.de/joomla-templates.com/etc
> <http://joomla.de/joomla-templates.com/etc>, making sure it's what the
> customer wants, and tweaking accordingly. If i find myself having to
> spend more than two hours scrolling through a poorly structured (or in
> a foreign language) style sheet the price moves towards the high end.
>
> per page cost:
> copy/paste - $3 - $10/page (should depend on how much work you
> have to do to make that copy/paste work. one time i had a person email
> me 10 docx files and tell me they wanted their site to look *exactly*
> like those documents... colors fonts and all. I felt that i had to
> include the many email communications in which i told them that this
> was, in fact, not what they wanted, in the per-page-price).
> custom content - can you put a price on the creation of content
> that you cannot call it your own? some people think you can. I no
> longer make custom content because I've found that many people don't
> find my sense of humor appropriate. instead, if they have no content
> of their own, and still want a full-featured CMS, i use www.lipsum.com
> <http://www.lipsum.com> for filler (ok,ok - i use the filler initially
> even if they have their own content; so many people will look at an
> empty template and fall in love... until they see it filled with words).
> graphics - have i spent more time in Photoshop than i have in
> Firefox? (++ graphics $$) Did i have to touch up every washed out
> image they gave me? (++ graphics $$) did i have to resize every
> 1220x900 @ 300dpi images they gave me? (++ graphics $$) did i have to
> round off the corners of the template they liked? (++ graphics $$).
> the only graphics i don't consider are when i replace that damned
> Joomla favicon.
>
> extensions/modules: back to the hourly guessing. how much work did you
> put in? I've installed Joomla extension that worked as advertised,
> right out of the box (so to speak). I have also installed
> extensions/mods that eventually had me editing more PHP than i care to
> look at in a month... Price goes up. Of course (and sometimes i feel
> like this makes me look a little unprofessional - but i do it anyway)
> I always give the customer the option of dropping said extension
> before i start pulling my hair out (and charging them accordingly) for
> something that they're not even sure they want.
>
> ... and then there's trade
> prices go all willy-nilly if cash is not involved. My wife has a $2000
> tattoo on her leg that was paid for with a ~$300 Joomla site (
> www.cynicaltattoos.net <http://www.cynicaltattoos.net> ).
>
> hope this helps some...
>
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Stewart Dean <studean at comicnet.net
> <mailto:studean at comicnet.net>> wrote:
>
> Probably a token hourly charge for support rather than a
> retainer... Though SEO might warrant a small retainer, if available.
>
>
> On 2/12/2010 9:24 AM, Cameron Purvis wrote:
>
> I'd like to know this also. Are you going to have ongoing
> support in
> there, aka retainer or hourly revision charges?
>
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 9:10 AM, Stewart
> Dean<studean at comicnet.net <mailto:studean at comicnet.net>> wrote:
>
> Are there any web designers for hire on this list? I've
> never had to charge
> to build a website, so I'm wondering what's reasonable.
> I'm looking at a
> 37-page Joomla! site, content to be provided and
> maintained by the client,
> but the designer may have to copy/paste it in place the
> first time.
> "Store-bought" templates are fine, but the template may
> have to be altered
> slightly if it doesn't meet client specification.
>
> What kind of price and time frame are we looking at here?
>
> Stu
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