This is something that’s been at the back of my mind for some time.
There seems to be a complete disconnect in the way one web developer ( for the sake of simplicity, this includes, Web Designers, Web Graphic Artists, and Code Slingers) prices his/her services from the next . You’d be forgiven for thinking that some of these characters pick out prices from thin air; and you’d be right half the the time.
For a long time I dismissed these differences as the makings of free market economics until a revelation suddenly dawned on me ( /* insert hallelujah chorus here */)
The low barriers to entry for web development make it so easy to make a mess of things and get away with it that most people will not notice except for the few discerning eyes.
Let me digress for a moment.
Apart from formal training in computer science, I have no formal web training at all. The web was a lab experiment when I was a student (that’s when ftp was the killer app). So I learned by trial-and-error (ok, I also learned quite a bit from the multinational computer giant I worked at). I still learn quite a lot and I prefer staying an eternal student rather than being a know-it-all Guru.
When I started out on the web, I was under the naive impression that web development was a piece of cake. I’m guilty of jumping on the web bandwagon with a view to making an easy, decent living (that was 2001 – I had been dabbling since 1996), but my fantasy bubble has long since been popped by harsh reality.
It’s true that developing acceptable websites was easier in the early days (Think, blinking javascript, smileys all over the page and intergalactic backgrounds); but aspects of the web have since evolved into something almost totally unrecognisable from the initial purpose of websites. The web has evolved from a medium for displaying telephone numbers and directions to your location to a specialised networking medium with many invisible underlying protocols.
This is not readily apparent to the newcomer and there’s still a lot of debris floating on the surface (I know, I’ve produced a lot of junk myself along the way and I’m not ashamed to say it).
It is very common to find a clueless pair of web developer and client working together to unleash on the world a spectacularly malformed pile of rubbish (the pro’s will agree with me here, there are many ready examples of individual websites, companies, and goverment departments committing horrendous atrocities on the web). This is not limited to one-man-show developers or small business. Big organisations screw up too!
I’m repeating what you might already know. The tools for building websites have become fairly easy to use, and even though I applaud the efforts of all those who worked hard to make it easier for others to use this fantastic medium, the unintended result is that too many people are using these tools improperly and charging none-the-wiser customers for the service. Filling the web with even more junk.
This is linked to the number 1 reason you find the staggering difference in pricing from one developer to the next. The professionals charge more for their efforts because they know what it takes to do the job properly.
They know about the importance of valid CSS and XHTML, they know about optimally placing JavaScript links to reduce loading times, they keep Search Optimisation in mind while working on your design, Cross-Browser compatibility…, I can go on and on about the many other things that are not readily apparent to the uninitiated.
This makes it increasingly important for a person who needs a web solution to learn as much as possible about the modern web and to ask the right questions when interviewing for a web project.
Just as you learned all by yourself to tell the difference between grasshoppers and Prada shoes, you need to learn the difference between web debris and and a quality web solution. If your only knowledge consists of comparing the price of one product/developer to another, you are in big, BIIIG trouble.
Just because something is cheap doesn’t mean it’s worth the cost
First of all, let me state that I have also been on the receiving end of requesting a proposal, and being asked for a budget figure on the request for quotation/proposal form. You know, the line that goes:
What is your budget for this project? : $____________________
The first time I encountered it, my first reaction was
…shouldn’t it be your responsibility to tell me how much the whole thing is going to cost? I don’t know much about the pricing in your industry. What if I tell you my budget and I end up over-paying?
So I know how you feel. Any first-time prospective web/software development client can be forgiven for thinking that this is a trick question; A naked attempt to rip you off. Tell them you have 50-thousand and they’ll price your requirements at 50-thousand, even though the whole thing probably costs 4-thousand, right?
To be honest, the are probably some unscrupulous web design firms / software development houses that do just that, but I don’t know any; so I’ll only be talking about the good guys.
It turns out there is a very good reason you will be asked for a budget figure when you request a quotation for a web/software project. I found it a pity that the reasons for this question are not made widely known.
In this article I’m going to set the record straight to allay your fears, dear potential web client <wink, wink>.
The first reason is that you may have exceptionally high expectations and a budget that can barely touch the surface when it comes to delivering on your requirements.
Imagine how the poor bidder for your project will feel after spending spirited hours (or days even) putting together a beatifully formatted project proposal with the fair market estimate for your project; only for you to turn them down because you did not expect it to be that expensive, and you definitely do not have that kind of money!
The firm/bidder will have actually spent money (i.e. on unbilled billable hours, proposal development skill, materials and infrastructure) on something that was never going to happen, simply because your budget, which you kept secret, was unrealistic compared to the deliverables you asked for.
You will have created a mini-economic crisis for the bidder and wasted your own time in reading through that beautiful proposal. If you had sent out your request to more than one firm/bidder? Well… you get the idea.
Reason number two is that there is more to development and design nowadays. Back in the good old days, it was much simpler to design (for example) a website. If it looked good in internet explorer, you were all set. Netscape had lost in the browser wars, so there was no need to worry about designing for it.
Today we have four major web browsers that can be used by visitors to your website, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Safari (not taking into account the older browser versions). These browsers have slight differences in the way they would display your web pages. Tests should be run on your design using each of these browsers, and corrections need to be made so that your website looks consistent accross these browsers. This excercise costs time and money, and it definitely has to be costed in.
Now, to get to the point: There are a number of separate, ideal tests that can be conducted on your project to improve the quality of the end-results. Some are mandatory, some are recommended but can be left out if your budget is too tight. Your project may end up with some quality issues, e.g. usability issues if the usability test was not conducted.
So there you have it. Giving a budget estimate actually helps your bidders to carve out the best solutions for your projects. I hope this article has shed a bit more light on the topic.