web designer website design

DVardysShadow

andthethreebears wrote: »

Just showed this thread to by better half (thinking he could help) he says:

the split is between design and development, not website development and database development
(wouldn't be much of a web developer if you couldn't design/maintain a good database)
that guy won't find someone with a truly high level of skill for the money he's offering, unless they really need the money
try graduates? look on web design / development forums? or if you are desperate / willing to splash some cash - get a recruiter involved.

sorry!

Sort of true on the split - but from the perspective of explaining to the OP, I stand by what I say. He needs a database developer who can do website stuff. Not a website developer who claims to do database. The serious part of this problem is in the database, the website is trivial. Once the database is cracked he can give the job of putting a customer oriented skin on it to any web developer.

RobTang

tonytee wrote: »

I did use a UK company for a very large project in the past but they contracted the work to an Indian company anyway. The language barrier and the email only contact was a problem. So was the time difference in the two countries. I have heard from alot of people who claim all the IT talent is in India but haven't had the privelege yet.
.

If that UK company did a good job why not use them again ?

In theory they should not just do a pure sub-contract, but they should do the Business analysis, Technical Analysis+Spec and Technical Design then get the subcontractors to write the actual code.
That first bit is the majority of the work.

India has good IT talent, the thing is the best talent doesn't stay in India, multi-nationals offer them positions and they leave. So when you freelance code you get a churn of hardworking but inexperienced people.

The key is you have to know how to use them properly, There are countless projects that have spent (wasted) millions of pounds because they did not know how to utilise their outsource resources properly.

Vuze

This is a big site project - it will be easy to underestimate what is involved here, but trust me on this - it will require a huge amount of coding and work to incorporate all the features you will likely want in the end product.

For example, in your mind, you will simplify it and think of a few pages, without considering all the processes - when an email reply is automatically pushed to a bidder, they will want to reply by email for convenience, so you will want to develop a way for them to reply directly from their email inbox without necessarily having to log into your site first - these types of features are not technically required or in your job description, but they are essential to a successful site of your nature.

If you can back this project up with a £5k budget, then you will be ok - but you will likely need to outsource it. Even companies in the UK are just taking jobs on and outsourcing the work overseas. You've used freelancer.com, try elance.com instead. However, you will get a lot of timewasters and dreamers bidding on your project. It is up to you to interview them and assess if they know what they are talking about, and even then you are not guaranteed of performance.

Here is some tips:

- Use a freelancer site and choose a provider with an existing reputation/good reviews (and check their project history, are all the jobs $100-500 mini projects or do they regularly get work over $1500 per project

- Outsourcing doesn't always mean India - look at European countries and surrounding areas, you may find talent in Russia, China, Ukraine etc.

- Use escrow service for payments and setup multiple milestones and do not release any payments except and until you have something that you can use or do something with (just imagine if the company bails on you overnight, will you be left with a worthless junk or something you can salvage) work it out according to that.

- Many of those freelancers will promise the world and be overconfident - again, it is up to you to talk to them in depth and to see if they know what they are talking about - it helps if you have some development or project management experience because you can pick up on warning flags or good signals, but it would appear that you don't really know what you're doing here - you need a trustworthy consultant to help you out on that front.

- Define your project scope and write it out, in detail, every minute detail, write it down. Create a project specification with every thing you want, page for page, every feature and button and process. When you post your job description, only write out a summary of the job like you did on this thread, then talk to the bidders and only then send them your fully detailed project specifications, and question them about it. The more you have written down, the less misunderstandings there will be later. It is a contract so you have to put everything in writing - in a project like this, there is a high risk that the company wont do the job to specification and when you file a dispute to reclaim your money, you want to have the evidence in your side and favour, so don't waste your money and blow it carelessly.

So far this is all about the development, but it is important to always review your business idea itself and make sure you have thought it through. Based on your description, I'm not sure what you are trying to do exactly, when you say: "website designed where I will be advertising a service" - what kind of service, are you going to be the only person advertising the service or other users too? Why can't you advertise your service on existing sites and advertising boards and then when someone pays you for your service, you contract the work out to a freelancer site - they also bid their lowest/best bid and you select the contractor and get the job done? maybe you didn't describe it properly, but there is a disconnect in your website proposal.

If I was in your position, I would try to find an existing (and mature) freelancer clone site script and then post a job to have that developed and customized to your specification. When developing something from scratch, there will be a steep learning curve to get all the right features and bug fixing, but having an existing script will have done a significant portion of the development for you already.

It is very easy to waste your money and end up with nothing or useless junk, so plan and take your steps wisely.

tonytee

Thank you for all the kind comments.

Just to clarify things a little more:

I dont really want to say what I will be selling but can give aan example of a product. Lets say I am advertising a boiler service (I am a gas engineer and this came into my head first). I will be advertisiing this nationally. Once a customer enters their information and pays through paypal the job will be emailed to all registered gas engineers within 15 miles radius. 15 miles is the default but all engineers can work further out or even reduce the radius. The gas engineers login and bid for the job. I will be selling at £80 for the boiler service. Bidding will start at £70 and bids will be downwards in £1 steps. All engineers who are outbid will be emailed outbid notices.

The auction will be for 24 hours and winning bidder will get the full job details emailed to them. When bidding is in prgress only postcode details are shown.

Engineers will have the option to view all their jobs, see jobs they are bidding on, jobs they have won and jobs they need to attend, jobs completed and jobs paid for. Also jobs they have been outbidded on and also their highest bids on jobs. They can mark jobs with the above actions and they have to enter an appointment time and date into the system.

Admin panel must have: job list which shows jobs paid for, jobs open for bidding, jobs awarded, scheduled, attended, completed and cancelled.

Admin should be able to assign job to engineer bypassing auction process. Admin to be able to cancel job or restart bidding or extent auction by another 24hours.

All jobs will have current status in admin panel ie, attended, completed paid. Also, full job details (customer add, tel number) will be displayed if job number is hovered over with mouse!

Payment to engineer will be manual, ie through bank transfer. Engineer will have place to enter bank details into engineer details area.

Admin should be able to create engineer profile and delete any profile. Once admin create profile, email automatically gets sent to engineer with unique (generated password) to let them know they have been registered.

If engineer wants to make their own login they receive email confirmation once set up and they have to click on that to confirm email and begin using account.

Admin must be able to have ability to delete profiles and block emails.

When engineer bidding, their IP address will be displayed with a bid notice - to prevent misuse and/or fraud.

Automatic emails will be:

Customer receipt email, confirmation of payment.
Engineer email for bid invite
Out bid email
Job win email

Account activation
Password reminder
Job manually awarded email.

All content in CMS so I can change.

Sitemap, terms/conditions, privacy policy and pageload speed must be very fast to ensure google adwords friendly.

All content provided by me including logo.

Also, contact form.

Also, must be able to change price of product with click of a button.

Also, must be able to search for engineer ie email address, first name, last name or part of name, using wildcard aswell.

So experts on here, how much should I expect to pay for a site designed with above spec?

It will work as a business idea because there is an oversupply of engineers with a limited amount of work.

Thank you for all the helpful.

tonytee

ringo - it seems that I need an expert and a student wont be able to do such a project.
DVardys - thanks for the email. I am starting to understand now. Why do I need to change colour though? I can understand font size -how easy is that to implement on a site, ie how much extra work? Also, what are tooltips?
andthethreebears - i was quoted $600 - 700 for the build of this website and some quoted $1500. I went for the one that made me feel most at ease with jhis ability - it was all crap though and nothing seemed to function - especially the reverse bidding. My budget is £5,000 as it was before.
nowtsquared - i didnt produce a required budget but the guy who bid on the project did.
Robtang - they did an ok job but it took them 9 months when they said 6 weeks. It was a hassle getting everything right. It was frankly a nightmare - never again.

littlepanther

This guy is the business, Phil Franklin at https://www.obsys.co.uk, he is a top notch developer.

chunter

A big expensive website and you're going to put the very tacky Google adwords on it?
An ebay for local services?

tonytee

are you confusing adsense with adwords or have I got it wrong somewhere?

RobTang

tonytee wrote: »

ringo - it seems that I need an expert and a student wont be able to do such a project.

You know I think the scope is within a decent final year dissertation project, although its kind of the wrong time of year and you're probably looking for a better timeframe.

You dont have to give the entire project to a single developer or company you know.
Get a decent developer to design a framework, then just hand out small parts to different freelancers, each part is more easily specified so theres less ambiguity and if one doesn't work out; it doesn't kill the entire project.

Ok its not quite that simple in practice. but its normall better to spread your risk around anyway.

DVardysShadow

tonytee wrote: »

... DVardys - thanks for the email. I am starting to understand now. Why do I need to change colour though? I can understand font size -how easy is that to implement on a site, ie how much extra work? Also, what are tooltips?

Why ask? These are all things I am suggesting, indeed recommending you should not be bothering with until you have a working database solution.

Looking at your other post, with your talk about admin panels, you begin to sound like a classic client with a problem he cannot describe, but a bag full of solutions. In software, the usual problem you have with a client is that he knows exactly HOW the job should be done, but not WHAT is required. So it is when you ASSUME that there will be an admin panel. This is part of why I believe so strongly that you need to start with getting a working database design and get a web page specialist to package it once you have a working database.

I do feel destined to be ignored on this point, as would most software engineers.