Choosing a web deisgner tips

[Rabbie]

Hello

I am writing a guide for small businesses & self employed people to market themselves. I am stuck on one section:

How to pick the right website deisigner?
How to minimize your cost, and their effort so website can be developed quickly and efficiently?

All advice welcomed, and with your permission guys, can I use it in the book? In return I can email you a free copy once complete, thank you.

Regards,
Rabbie Kadhim

[jpstephens]

I'd love to help out, I run a web development company....

Send me an e-mail at info@bluesailcreative.com

[sadu]

I'm happy to answer any questions objectively as well.

I'm a freelance developer - feel free to PM me if you like, otherwise here are some tips that I think are relevant...

Choosing a developer:

- Choose someone who has example sites that are similar to what you need. If you are a small business, no point choosing a developer that specialises in large government sites.

- There are pros and cons of one-man freelancers vs larger development houses. Understanding these pros / cons is important to your decision.

- Choose your CMS platform before you choose your developer. Then choose a developer who specialises in that CMS / platform. Otherwise you will find that developers will talk you into using their platform, which may not be the best choice.

- Plan to avoid vendor-lock-in from the start. Choosing an Open Source platform / developer is a good choice, because if they drop the ball you can find someone else. A website built on a proprietary platform is worth nothing if the developer later on turns out to be too expensive / tardy / apathetic / whatever. Plan for changing developers at least once over the life of the project - it happens all the time. Good developers will make this process easy for you (and they won't give you a funny look when you ask them). If you get a bit of a grey answer when you ask about vendor lock-in, then this isn't a good sign.

Minimising cost:

- Be specific. If the developer knows exactly what you want, they will work faster and it will be cheaper. Most development cockups stem from poor communication rather than poor work. Developers hate doing something then being asked to change it after it's finished.

- Have your content ready to go. Most delays are caused by lack of content from the client. Most developers will not create the content for you, though they should help you tweak what you have. Content is harder than you think to create - you need to put a good block of time aside to do this properly. Or pay someone to do it for you.

-Learn how to email properly. This might sound silly, but I have clients who emails me with "web site" as the subject of every email. It's impossible to find anything they have sent in the past because the subject is all the same. Use a specific subject. Start a new email thread rather than tacking new requests onto the back of old emails. Group requests into blocks where possible and use numbered lists (so the developer can reply with "I have finished #1, #2 and #4). Simple communication ettiquette makes everyone more efficient.

- In a similar vein, any photos you supply should be labelled appropriately. Especially if the subject matter is unclear (eg a website selling technical machinery). Makes it easier for the developer to put the right photos in the right place.

- Plan meetings properly or eliminate. Irrelevant meetings are the biggest drain of project time ever. Clients don't seem to understand that an hour chatting in a meeting means an hour less developing. As a client, in order to maximise productivity on their project, they should read Tim's advice on meetings and do that (ie email clear requests to the developer instead).

- Where possible, the developer should have one contact person in your organisation. There is nothing worse than having different requests coming through different people in a company.

- And finally - LISTEN TO YOUR DEVELOPER. When your developer tells you not to use a black background, use a flash introduction, justify your body text or include background music - it's not because they are lazy. Developers take into consideration a whole range of factors - usability, browser compatibility, loading speed and SEO being biggies. Just because your CEO likes background music on the site doesn't make it a good idea. Many many failed websites are due to someone with no web development experience having the final say on such things. Choose a good developer and trust their experience. They will gladly xplain their logic if you ask them.

Hope this helps.

[Y.O.Morales]

As a web developer, I have to agree with the tips offered by sadu. However, I add a couple more which are related to good relations and behavior with the developer (which, in the end, translates to the project management as well):

1. Don't push the developer into hurrying up a project quote or analysis. In many cases, the developer needs enough time for thinking all facets of each feature (for example, a multi-user system is not only a case of login and personal profiles; it also entails a lot of stuff that might creep later like password recovery, levels of permissions, etc.) If you push the developer and demand that you want a quote or feature-analysis now (like when talking via phone), chances are that something in the planning goes wrong and also starts the communication and relationship with the wrong foot. Trust the developer and have patience.

2. Along the same lines as the previous tip, be sure to have everything clear and agreed during the project's development cycles. This is why it's very handy when a developer has project management software (a popular one is basecamphq.com). This allows for constant communication and sometimes reviews of your website as it is being made, allowing for more involvement from you part.
That being said, don't abuse your position as a client and demand changes, big and small, every single day. Having to rework stuff just because you did not like how the the user registration system works, how white space is used, or similar whimsical changes simply consumes more hours and requires re-programming that often triggers more work or bugs.

[DaveinHackensack]

Depends what sort of site you're developing, I guess. My first site (http://shortscreen.com/), recently launched, and second site (which is currently in development), are both programming-intensive on the back end, so I used developers with CS degrees from a top state school, and experience doing work for some prominent corporate customers (e.g., Mercedes, CNN Money, etc.). I actually found these guys completely by accident -- I stumbled upon one of their blogs while looking for a photo for a post on my blog. I then got a proposal from them and ran it (and them) by a buddy of mine who works in IT and has a masters in IT from Columbia. He gave them a thumbs up and said their pricing was extremely competitive.

A couple of things I've learned from this process so far:

1) Get everything you want done specified in a contract ahead of time. My guys have been cool to work with, but it's a more comfortable feeling knowing that everyone is on the same page.

2) If you've got more than one project in mind, ask for a package discount. This has saved me money not just with my developers, but with my lawyer, my logo designer, etc. It's often a win-win, because developers (and others) can often reuse some elements from your first project in your second project anyway.

3) Glad I went domestic with my developers. I have spent a lot of time communicating with them via e-mail and phone about various details, and meeting in person occasionally as well. That would all have been much more difficult if they were in India.

Hope that helps.

[kamakiri]

Go with a cheap elance designer. Not the cheapest, but near there. Why? Because with your first site you don't have a clue what you need. You are guaranteed that what ever you choose now with no experience will be wrong.

You are better off going with the ready, fire, aim method and just getting whatever you can out there right now, then tweaking it (ranges from spell checking to a complete overhaul). Your goal here is to make lots of mistakes and learn from them. Just don't make the same mistakes twice.

All the advice here is great, but listening to it all and trying to hammer out all of those details will kill your muse. It will drain your energy like a time vampire. Again, what ever you think is important is probably not going to be, and whatever work you have done will be outdated in 6 months.

That is not to say it will be unusable, just outdated. trying to stay abreast of the newest tech on the verse is an exercise in futility, and something you need not waste energy on. So get a site up and run with it. Learn what to do, and more importantly, what not to do, and get rolling.

[Rabbie]

Hi Guys

I just wanted to thank you so much for contributing, this is all great advice, and it's people like you that make a forum great.

I have used some of this in my book, and if you'd like to PM me with an email address, I would be happy to email you a copy free of charge.

Sadu, thank you especially. May I ask what CMS means? As I'd like to simplify it to my readers, thank you.

Y.O. Morales, I have used your advice too, so thank you.

In the meantime, if anyone else reading this has more tips, please feel free to continue adding, as it will be useful not to to my readers, but to those of this forum.

Best wishes,

Rabbie Kadhim

[Rabbie]

To Sadu and Y.O. Morales, if you'd like to post/PM me your name/website I can credit you in the book accordingly.

[Sven]

My advise:
Learn to install an open source off the shelf solution yourself and pick a template that suits your target audience.
I spent several thousands on my windvane site, only to discover later that I could have done everything myself using Drupal CMS.

On top of that, I had a custom design done (which is the normal thing to do in Holland) only to discover that my avarage customer (who is not Dutch) does not have a clue where it comes to graphic design.

When you start with a cheap solution you may find out that you need a very custom one. That is fine, have it made then. Owning a first website is always a steep learning curve, open source offers great flexibility to experiment with.

[sadu]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cms

Before you start writing about websites / marketing, you need to get a bit of experience with CMS platforms. The CMS allows non-developer folk to update the content on their websites, and not all CMS software is created equal. Most modern websites will involve a CMS of some form these days.

If you are giving people advice on how to market their website, then you need to include a discussion on CMS options as these are an important part of marketing a website. Have a look at www.opensourcecms.com for some demos of popular CMS packages (albeit only open source options).

Edit: No need to credit me in the book or send a free copy - just use the information as you like, glad to be able to assist.

[tedpenner]

Hi,
Thank you for the excellent information. I have been on the infrastructure and repair side of the I.T. business for years and have just decided to give a website a try as my first stab at automating a source of income.

I have used Joomla and Wordpress and neither one will allow me to keep track of what my developer is doing in the code easily.

My idea initially was to have some 10 or more outsourcers in India working on a single website. I would be able to see just the changes they were making or had made since date/time, and either commit them to production or stay away from them. All the while, I would have total control and be able to undo something if it wasn't right.

A system shown here in this video http://www.squarespace.com/tour caught my eye. Unfortunately, it's kindof a bait-and-switch tactic where they ratchet you up per month until you outgrow the system and then what? Slick system though. Another caveat is zero phone support which could be a dealbreaker for me.

I can find LOTS of coders on o'desk that can do these kind of things for peanuts. If I can somehow gain control of what they do and can preview the results before choosing to commit the change, then I think that I will have a workable solution at very affordable rates. This is all about getting something that can be developed on by even the least seasoned developer and either approving or disapproving.

Needless to say, I don't have that scenario to date. I have one developer and he is NOT in a hurry. Can anyone point me in the right direction for this type of set-up?

[winvest]

@ sadu I second this:
Choose your CMS platform before you choose your developer. Then choose a developer who specialises in that CMS / platform. Otherwise you will find that developers will talk you into using their platform, which may not be the best choice.

@ kamakiri - I couldn't agree with you more.
You are better off going with the ready, fire, aim method and just getting whatever you can out there right now, then tweaking it (ranges from spell checking to a complete overhaul). Your goal here is to make lots of mistakes and learn from them. Just don't make the same mistakes twice.

My problem with open source CMS is that you don't really have anyone to call when you need support. Even after you get your site designed, you will need to have some coding knowledge and you will wade through a lot of forum posts and do a lot of research to figure out the simple problems. For me, that problem solving time is better spent marketing, testing and selling.

[tedpenner]

Time better spent indeed. I'd much rather spend my time selling.

So what CMS platform do you recommend?

[Francois]

I want a scalable traffic-driving webapp made, for which I have chosen Google Appengine working with django, and I have found many more experienced designers on odesk.com than elance.com, for cheaper too.

I am still interviewing candidates, and they estimate that they will need 8 weeks of work on the site. At almost $20/h for 8*40 hours, it will require a $6400 investment. This is a lot of money for me, but if I don't move now I will regret it if someone else does it.

The webapp targets a sizable mobile niche, with future-proof device-independent technology, and there is no competition atm from what I can tell. It is a location based services website, and if approached correctly has a definite potential to drive a lot of traffic. I have ways in which I can monetize later on, but first I want to get a user base.

Currently I am very busy, so I have little time to micro-manage the web designer. I have a vision of how everything must work on the website, but the web designer must fill in the gaps. I can't launch a half-ass webapp, it is all or nothing.

How can I reduce the investment and still get the whole thing done? And if the website does not do as well as I had hoped, how can I still make the investment count?

[Monkiii]

If I can somehow gain control of what they do and can preview the results before choosing to commit the change, then I think that I will have a workable solution at very affordable rates. This is all about getting something that can be developed on by even the least seasoned developer and either approving or disapproving.

Sounds like you're just after a server with a revision control system like git / bazar / SVN / CVS. Any of these (free, open source) options would let you have as many authenticated users as you wish, making whatever changes and allowing you to accept / reject code changes which are then shown on the server. Git seems to be the new darling of the moment, although if you want to see every code change, rather than whole features at a time, then you're probably better off with SVN (which is incredibly popular).

Go wild. :)

[ChristineG]

And VERY VERY IMPORTANT: Make sure your designer understands SEO and will base their design on it. Hint:
- Do keyword research first
- Group related keywords ---> each group will be a page of your site.
Then BAM, right at the start, you'll have a site that's optimized for SEO and that will be sure to rank high provided you put in the adequate content.

And about choosing a CMS, get WORDPRESS. It is incredibly powerful now and has everything you need to do e-commerce + social media + anything you might want. Easy to set up (by you or hired), cheap.

Hope that helps,

ChristineG