So how do you find the right designer for you? It seems like everyone is doing Web development work these days, many with no prior experience. The best way to start looking is to cruise the Web and see who designs and maintains sites that you like. Most websites have the name of the designer somewhere on the site. Frequently, it's also a hypertext link that takes you to the designer's home page. From there it's easy to send email or write down a phone number for a quick call. Another way to find designers is to ask your company's ISP (the company that sells your E-mail or Internet access) for referrals. Most ISPs, if they don't have designers on staff, have a few who they refer work to.
After locating a few designers, here are some questions that can help narrow the field:
Can you meet our deadline?
The best design team in the world is of no use if it can't meet a deadline. If your company's
site must be up and running by a fixed date (in time for a trade show or a budget period, for
example) that should be the first question to the designers. If they say they can meet it, make
sure timing is addressed in the contract. Each day the project is late should be reflected by a
discount in price. It's not unreasonable to expect a design team to have a working site ready
to go within a month. Set up mini-deadlines along the way, to make sure everyone understands
how the site should progress.
Can I see some samples of your work?
Ask for samples even from designers whose work you've already seen on the Web. A savvy design
team will show you work they've done for companies in your industry, or companies that are
similar to your company's size, or companies that sell similar products. Look for variety. Is
the designer using different solutions for different sites, or just repeating one standard
design trick? You don't need to see specific designs that would work for your company's site;
look instead for design solutions that work for the site they're on. Designers who are able to
show one business to its best advantage are likely to do the same for yours.
Who will do the actual work?
Some busy design firms farm out projects to another
designer--sometimes a freelancer who's not even on staff. That's not necessarily a bad thing,
but just as you would with a law firm or accounting firm, be sure to meet the people who will
actually be doing the grunt work for your business. you will be in many meetings with them as
the site develops, so make sure there's good communication.
What other services do you provide?
If there's nobody at your own company or ISP who
can do upgrades to the site, ask the designers about ongoing design and content maintenance.
What will they charge to make regular updates such as pricing changes, addition of new
products, removal of old ones, and changes inlinks to other sites? How often can they make
these changes? Daily? Weekly? How much will it cost to add new pages or scan in additional
graphics? Details should be spelled out in the contract. Ask, too, if they'll help you find a
service provider and register a company domain name.
Can you work with our in-house technical people?
If someone at your company will be helping design the site, establish up front how involved
that person will be with the outside designers. If your person can write in HTML, ask the
designers if they're available just to organize the site, with the in-house person doing the
actual creation. When can we see a mock-up? If there are several designers you like, consider
paying each of them to create mock-ups for comparison. These mock-ups should look like little
flow charts, showing how visitors would progress from one page to the next, and where links to
outside pages might be. Don't expect fancy graphics and meaningful text - the samples should
mostly illustrate how users would navigate your website.
How much will this cost?
Designers price themselves many different ways. Some charge by the project, some by the hour,
and some by the page. Hourly rates range from $30 to $100, usually depending on the experience
level of the designer, but not necessarily. Because it's a new industry, there's no pricing
standardization yet. The cheapest designers are those without much experience, willing to take
on their first clients at a discount rate in return for finished products to list on their
resumes. Many small companies gamble on untried designers. It's risky--stories of missed
deadlines and disappearing designers abound. But some get lucky. The site for Hot Hot Hot, a
food store with a flashy online presence, was first designed by a firm called Profound, in Palo
Alto, California. It was Profound's first Web job, so Hot Hot Hot got a discount. The colorful,
eye-catching area got a lot of attention from consumers and the media.
Can you design a fast-loading site?
One of the most important things to remember about design is that most visitors will be
reaching your site using modems, not leased lines. Modems can be slow and the people using them
are impatient; they don't like to wait for anything to load. Even if you have the most exciting
interactive graphic on the entire Web, if it takes too long to load, nobody will look at it a
second time. The classic mistake many small companies make is to include a large company logo
or scanned photograph of employees on their homepage. Color graphics take up the most storage
space on the computer and are much slower to load than text. By the time customers complain,
it's too late to recapture those visitors who left without complaining. Try to look at the
sites the designers have already made using a slow modem connection--14,400 baud or less.
How much of my own time will the design take?
Many companies that launch a website soon realize that it takes a lot of time and effort to
keep it current and interesting. At some point, most companies appoint or hire a Webmaster to
take over this project. At the beginning, though, it may fall on you. Ask the designer about
the experiences of their other clients, and consider calling these clients directly to hear
about their adventures.
Does the design take into consideration ongoing maintenance?
Don't forget to consider the ongoing maintenance of your website. A complicated site design may
look terrific, but remember that you will need to be able to update the site on a regular
basis, and you may want to be able to do this in-house. So don't "over-design" your site.
