web designer website design

Trinitrotoluene

littlepanther wrote: »

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

Judging by the look of the website I suggest you give him a miss.

OP, I can only reiterate what other people have said here. The project you are suggesting is massive and if you want it done decently I honestly think you are creeping into five figures.

Get the database working - you need to tell the database developer that it will be web based - but only when it is working as a database do you do any website work. Ideally, your database developer should at least include a basic website. But if he does, forget about branding and appearance. Just make sure that the data is managed how you want to manage it - ie that it works properly. Really, just the entry boxes, response fields and buttons, no backgrounds, no colours no fiddling with layout. No 'can you change the colours', 'can you increase the font size', 'can you add tooltips'.

This is the best advice you are going to get - at this point you shouldn't be worrying about how it will look but get the core functionality sorted. Reading through the brief you posted recently I think you are misjudging how much effort that kind of site will take to build. Hell, even your EMAIL system is going to be a massive job all on its own.

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

As a software engineer/web developer/IT Technician this makes me laugh because it is so true. I have this on my wall at home:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

terakris

Trinitrotoluene wrote: »

I have this on my wall at home:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

I sent that to a client a few months ago to try and get a point across that what im trying to do, im doing for a reason lol.

Great comic... still cracks me up :rotfl:

[Deleted User]

Obligatory Software engineering diagram...



As for needing an expert.. no, you don't need an 'expert', just someone who can sit down and understand your proposed project, it's work-flows, the data content ect.. The 'web design' bit is secondary to all this. I did something very similar when i sat down with my dad to design his website. It would make a very good final year project (but its the wrong time of the year).

Shame, this would have made a nice little job for me a few years ago, probably charge you under 5k for it as well. You do sound like you might be a bit of a 'hard work' customer though. I don't do web design anymore though, it doesn't pay enough

As a handy hint, remember to separate the project into 3 main sections:

Database design
Business logic
Website design

littlepanther

Trinitrotoluene, it is his programming and database skills that are required and he is second to none on that front. Don't judge a book by it's cover, ask to see the websites he's done and you will see what I mean. He knows he needs to update his own site but too busy working on other sites to do that.

[Deleted User]

littlepanther wrote: »

Trinitrotoluene, it is his programming and database skills that are required and he is second to none on that front. Don't judge a book by it's cover, ask to see the websites he's done and you will see what I mean. He knows he needs to update his own site but too busy working on other sites to do that.

I still wouldn't trust a web developer who's own homepage was made in MS Word - especially when most of the links on the front page don't work

Trinitrotoluene

littlepanther wrote: »

Trinitrotoluene, it is his programming and database skills that are required and he is second to none on that front. Don't judge a book by it's cover, ask to see the websites he's done and you will see what I mean. He knows he needs to update his own site but too busy working on other sites to do that.

I never usually judge a book by its cover, but when the book is claiming it's a professional book cover designer, if the cover is crap then the service is likely to be.

The first thing people are going to judge him on is his website which is awful. I work with a lot of application developers and web developers and if I came across him as a potential developer I would disgard him straight away based on his site, which is dreadful.

littlepanther

It is a shame he has not put up recent work or updated the links he has some great work. I agree with what you say and have gone on at him about it. But he says he is not a designer it is what is behind that counts. I'm going to pass on these comments to him, he might do something about it if it comes from someone else.

As a programmer he has done some amazing work, shame it is ruined by his site.

tonytee

Many thanks for all the input.

I have found someone and he has quoted me £500. He has come hugely recommended by a client of mine who he built a site for.

He showed me the functionality of the and the admin area and its very impressive. I have been sent a simple mockup with a few of the features already working.

Should be a weeks work he said. I cant understand why some experts on here were claiming the site would cost £10,000 plus..? Thats around 400 hours of work. This guy said he would be able to build it in around 20 hours.

Thanks again, will keep updating if anyone is interested.

[Deleted User]

500 quid... blimey, that's a good quote. Is he writing it bespoke?

If you're handing with code and databases, this stuff doesn't actually take too long. If he knows 'Ruby on Rails' you can throw together very functional sites exceptionally quickly.

However, i'm sure you'll be handed the site, and want some changes doing. Will 500 quid cover those changes? Will it cover any ongoing support?

tonytee

Well he said the site will be fully automatic and do everything that the brief I gave him stated. I sent him a very detailed brief. He said he built a similar site a year or so ago and he will use around 50% of the work he did on that one. The reverse auction will take the longest amount of time. He said I will have a site I am happy with as he will build it to my exact requirements. I have added lots of stuff I didnt even think of at first such as password reminder, engineer control panels where job status is visible ie bidding on job, job outbid, job won, job appointment made, job attended, job completed - thats for every job. one job is marked completed it lets me know the staus aswell, all the way through the process. The job then moved to completed jobs in his user panel. when I mark job paid it will show in his control panel.

I have added the design requirement aswell using a template that I really liked. I have asked him to make it adowrds friendly, ie adding such things as sitemap, privacy etc.

He said he might struggle with the reverse auction but .... (his words)...

On the server a script is run every 30 minutes.
This script checks the end date and time of all the open jobs and if this timestamp is in the past the manual end bidding function is run.

It seems like its bespoke but either way it will do what I want. The client I used gives him lots of business so a little ongoing support if anything breaks down will be expected by me. If everything works and I want something added that I later think of I expect to pay. How much I dont know.

He is American and has charged me $750 with payment after job completion. Says he has workd for HarleyDavidson and other large names in the UK.