Web help please - non boaty

david_e

david_e

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www.touraine.blogspot.com
I have recently aquired responsibility for the development of my companies website. (Please do not ask me to disclose the name, well not yet) We are a medium size business (£12m t/o)

On a scale of 1 - 10 it scores about 2 for content and 1 for presentation. OK it looks nice but says very little and is just about as inert as you could get.

Our IT contractors are also our ISP provider. When dealing with the website they are slow to respond to requests, slack in their work and hopeless at meeting deadlines. They charge us £120 per month for hosting the site and £40 per hour for any work either on site or off site (Yorkshire location)

I want to make it sing and dance but know little about the processes. I know that alot of the members on here work in IT related stuff so would appreciate some help and pointers on where to start and pitfalls, costings etc.

I see the problem as two fold - 1 the design of the site and the content 2 the day to management and updating.

Where do I find a good designer and are there standards/associations that can verify quality etc?

What should I expect a good ISP provider to be able to do?

Any other key pointers to start the ball rolling?

PS we do not have a written agreement with our IT contractors, so sacking them should be easy, or is it?

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Could it be related to the £40 per hour? You pay more than that for a garage mechanic with all the skills and intelligence they show.

<hr width=100% size=1>this post is a personal opinion, and you should not base your actions on it.
 
Before sacking IT contractors get them to document your network and systems fully.. this should be done anyway so they shouldn't be suspicious.. also should enable them to fault find and work better anyway.. so if they do become suspicious explain this to them.

You could formalising the agreement for IT support into a Service Level Agreement (this isn't a contract per se but a document which explains to both the client and customer what is supported and expected levels of support and resolution times.. should also document different levels of outage from minor software problem on client pc to major server outage.. and how these should be delt with..

An SLA could help as they may not be clear exactly what it is you expect .. will take some time to sort out but with the system documentated as well it will give them a clear picture of standards etc

Would suggest that you use separate web hosts from general IT support.. Depending on the functions / frills you want your website to have have a look around at what is available.. there is plenty of competition out there even if you limit yourself to UK hosts..

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Re: £40 p.h.

could be, but being new, am not aware of bidding history. Tis Yorkshire as well:-))

They operate from a home base so their o/heads are likely to be low.

What is the going rate, any idea?

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hm, there are definitely lots of webbish people hereabouts. Webcraft, for example. PM him praps. But decent design ain't cheap and not IT-people think it's all a total ripoff and easy pimpsy, which it is, but since we're all at it, erm hard luck.

Seriously, decent design is summink you can judge for yourself, so find a site you like and it almost certainly will have a contact for the web designer hidden somewhere.

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This depends on the type of site you want. Some businesses can get away with relatively static sites and periodically upload updates. Others are almost totally dynamic and data-driven. Most are in between. This has a major influence on design decisions. So think about its function before you think about its design or you will waste huge amounts of time and money.

Don't confuse gimmicks with function, users want to extract information and are only irritated by flashy gizmos.

Let 'Form follows function' be your mantra

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Just a small point to remember, load speed. If you are working to a business community then they are likely to be on a faster level of access than a home user, even with the spread of broadband. A multi minute wait while a nice little intro movie loads can be very offputting to those on dialup.

Testing by the developer and his high spec machine/fast connection may not reveal this problem! I speak from experience at both ends of the process, as designer and end user.

<hr width=100% size=1>Two beers please, my friend is paying.
 
The key question is what do you want the site to achieve?

Depending on your business and customer base your site could vary between a 4 page information / address site and a fully functional eCommerce offering.

Be suspicious of "designed" sites - the flash (sic) web work can often detract from the image/message you are trying to project rather than add to it. Most small web-design companies concentrate entirely on the look of the site without worrying about what it is supposed to achieve.

For small, static, sites then there are a lot of tools available that would enable you to bring the content creation in house (e.g. Frontpage or Dreamweaver).

As far as the contractors are concerned, £40ph is not an unreasonable sum, provided that they do the work in a timely fashion. A simple update to the website (such as modifying or adding a new page) should take less than an hour - if they say it takes longer than that, and they designed the site, then sack them because they've made a hash of it.

Responsiveness is a matter for an SLA - get one.

More generally, to return to my first question, if you see the website as driving business, or giving competitive advantage, then make sure you get the budget to make a good job of it. If not then why are you spending time on it?

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Sounds to me as though your're paying a great deal for not a lot.

I would suggest you consider separating out the hosting and design services. For example, for £69 per month you could get an entire dedicated server at <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.oneandone.co.uk>http://www.oneandone.co.uk</A>. This would give you masses of space and complete control. (This is not commercial as we do offer web hosting but not with the kind of bandwidth you can obtain from firms like 1&1.)

As both a systems analyst and professional web designer, I would also suggest that you start by looking at your data. What data do you have that you want to see on the web site ? How often do you wish to update it ?

You don't state what kind of business you're running but for a corporate site a clean simple design is important (take a look at some of the huge corporates - IBM for example). Any form of animated gif is a real no-no and most corporate clients run a mile from Flash.

<hr width=100% size=1>a pragmatist is an optimist with a boat in the UK - but serious about not being in the UK !
 
There is a big difference between the technical stuff your ISP does and proper we design. Web design work is usually the remit of Arty types - same people who do your Advertising, PR work etc.
Get them to quote for the websire and seperate that from the hosting side, which you can leave with the ISP.
But £40ph is pretty cheap.

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I don't think £40 per hour for web design is 'pretty cheap' . . . any price per hour is dubious unless you get a correctly costed estimate first for any work done. The comment about garage mechanics overlooks the fact that they actually get between £5 and £15 per hour - the rest goes to the garage. The same goes for web design/development companies. The teenage code monkeys and dreamweaver technicians get a pittance while the rest goes on the sales and marketing budget.

Don't go by price, it's meaningless. Look at a designer's portfolio and ask yourself if you would be happy with any of those sites. If you find a site you like, find out who designed it and look at their portfolio - then check it out in the search engines to see if it is easily found. I have come across smart looking websites that do not even come top in Google when the company name is used as a search term!

Once you have a shortlist of possible designers your best bet is to create an 'invitation to tender' document stating exactly what you want and send it to as many companies as possible. Don't make it too complex, but be prepared to analye the responses and enter into a dialogue with as many as you think may fit the bill. Remember, you will probably need to have an ongoing relationship with your web designer, so pick one you think will stay the course.

Good luck,

Nick






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