Ripped off?

W3C is meant to be the big boss, sort of thing, they set the guide lines for the browser to follow, or meant to, I'm sure the W3C site has an about them page outlining what/who/how they do things, but I warn you its a really bad site to find your way around, if you have a short tempter, dont try it . I use them to validate my sites.

polls etc can be found free, bravenet comes to mind but also any of the free javascript sites, and some different languages sites, like cgi, perl, php etc sites offer free coding. you can get anything free on the web these days, even web designers.

Just because your in Australia doesnt mean you have to use Australian web designers, I know some places here in NZ that use American and UK developers.

I think you need to shop around and whats been done and what you want to do and base that on what these guys are offering, if they cant do Apache or Perl, any normal business would contract it out, everybody does it these days.

I picked one page at random and looked at the source code, made with frontpage and a weird meta tag set up, including html tags, but the meta tags are doubled which can be seen as spamming by many search engines, I didnt look, but do you know what your search stats are?

The text on the navigation (under the buttons) is really hard to make out on Netscape4.7

$150/hour? For front page work? That's entirely rediculous. I hope these people are ashamed of themselves for overcharging their cleints - especially since you're a non-profit! I would suggest that you stop working with these people immediately and find someone else if you need help.

About the w3c - I'm not sure if people really pay that much attention to them. Their recommendations can be very hard to read for most people I think (the HTML 4.1 spec is okay, but others can be hard to figure out). Most of the time the browsers are lagging behind their recommendations by several years.

The w3c is very important for web development firms to be aware of for the simple reason that even with a two year delay, there is a lot to keep at the forefront of learning and keeping apace with the industry.

Regardless of whether the browser-developers are currently up to speed with the recommendations of the w3c, they are on the board of the w3c and help FORM the recommendations in the first place.

***

$150/hr AU is not unreasonable as a fee for a professional firm. If you went with a freelancer, you would be able to get a lower rate, as most freelancers have lower overheads.

HOWEVER, the length of time they are quoting you for simple things seems inflated.

Setting up a poll requires two steps -- coding the html for the form, and processing the form. Three steps if you want it in "real time", the third step being updating the file on the server that contains the data. If they are writing the polling script from scratch, complete with the display, then yes, 8 hours is reasonable. However, sensible firms have scripts they can quickly customize and reuse, and don't do everything from scratch. I would reasonably expect 2-3 hours for customizing, installing and testing.

As for titles on the pages, as you have seen from your Atomz results, that firm is full of poop. Every document should have a title, period. Why? Because (as in the case of Atomz) people don't always come in through the front door and they don't always come in through the frameset! And as you have already indicated, the site may not always remain in frames, and having titles on the documents would be necessary.

Search engines also don't care about your frameset and will link to your pages as "No Title" -- not helpful for the user searching for your information.

***

Credit card payment systems can be a little more on the pricey side. However you are using an outsourced system, so setting it up is just a matter of building the form and using the correct url, other than customizing the templates on the remote server, if applicable. i.e. not complex and definitely not time consuming. You would expect to pay a little more if the development company is doing the hosting of the ecommerce as well.

***

That said, the site doesn't work in Opera. They aren't writing all their own code, they are using code available on the web. The dynamic menus don't work in Opera (and they have removed the credit to the author, Thomas Brattli, as well, which isn't particularly ethical as it's illegal to remove copyright notices), and there are no text links to back it up. So while the pricing is reasonable, it's inflated for the quality of work you are getting, and the hours appear to be inflated as well.

I hope that this feedback helps you get what you need.

Suzanne

Quote: Originally posted by Suzanne
The w3c is very important for web development firms to be aware of for the simple reason that even with a two year delay, there is a lot to keep at the forefront of learning and keeping apace with the industry.

Oh I agree that it's important to keep an eye on what they're doing, I'm just not sure that many designers actually do. That's what I meant to say. I'd bet that there are people working in this field who don't even know who they are! So if you told me that I was doing something against w3c recommendations (and they are just that - it's not law or anything), I'd certainly go over there and check out the details, but others may not care. These guys can't even seem to pay attention to common sense let alone a respected recommendation.

I also agree that $150/hr AU is a reasonable fee for a professional firm, but only if you have the know-how to back it up. It doesn't seem to me that these people do.

Oh, and that menu doesn't work in mozilla/NS6 either.

Definitely, awareness is vital. Even if you don't adhere to all the recommendations (and you can join the w3c to help form those recommendations, btw), knowing what they are and who is and such will help you predict future trends in web development, and even future standards. Knowledge is key pretty well in any industry, but in IT, it's something that makes or breaks you!

I agree, too, Megan, that they seem to be charging the fees without any substantial knowledge backing those fees. It's still very much caveat emptor in this industry, sadly!

Suzanne

1. They didn't pre-load the images for the roll-overs in the main nav menu.
2. The text on the dynamic menu is insanely small on Netscape.
3. If it's a FrontPage site, and it's in frames, it means they couldn't even figure out "Themes" to keep it to a single page layout (no frames).
4. "You didn't ask for page titles" is no excuse.
5. 'meta name="description" content="The St James Ethics' means they didn't proof-read.
6. I think you need to find a new Development Company.

Thanks to everyone who has responded re this - your comments are most helpful, albeit extremely depressing. I've since learned we have actually spent AU$40,000 on the site - even more than I first thought.

We're going to be having a confronting 'please explain' meeting with the web developers, however, I'd be really grateful if anyone is able to clarify a few points for me - especially as I'm a bit of the babe in the woods here.

Firstly, can someone explain in layman's terms the issue of pre-loading the rollovers for me - I really don't understand that bit at all!

Secondly, many people have stated to me that the site has been done entirely in Frontpage. At the advice of our designers my organisation bought Frontpage for our previous webmaster (who had no prior knowledge of web design) to use. Could the Frontpage work simply be the work she's done since that time, or perhaps the designers put things in that format to help her with her job? Or is it clear they've used Frontpage all the way through?

Finally, I've discovered another area we appear to have been overcharged for and would be grateful for confirmation or otherwise. It's a password protected area which is used by 80-100 people to access a small database of 80-100 records, containing names, contact details and a brief profile of each person who accesses that part of the site (they are all Fellows of a leadership programme we run and the area is so they can network with one another). There is no discussion board or anything similar - just the database and a search function for them to look up details of people using a variety of fields. We were charged AU$7,800 for this work. Does this seem remotely appropriate?

FYI, I have contacted Thomas Brattli re the code on our site which appears to be his and asked him to confirm - although my small amount of research certainly seems to show it's his work. We will work on rectifying this situation asap and are just a little bit horrified about being in breach of someone's copyright and not giving credit where it's due.

I feel a bit sick and am dreaming of the lovely holiday I could have had with all that money for the good it's done us ... but thanks anyway!

Bug

geez these guys are jokes whoever they are id throw a search and a poll on your site for 200 american
with easy webpage control so everone in you office could do it and these guys are sending there kids threw college doing it these guys have shammed you, get out as quick as you can and find another company.

Preloading the rollovers means that when the page loads it loads the 'over' state of the buttons as well so that when you mouse-over the buttons they work/rollover automatically and doesn't have to wait for the second stage to load then work. Just makes it look smoother.

Front page is free (as far as I'm aware) with the Microsoft Windows OS. Most 'professional' website designer will not go near it as it produces pretty bad coding.

It just seems to me that they are charging you extortionate rates to do fairly standard/simple tasks and I would love to be a fly on the wall at your 'Explain yourself' meeting with them!

What ever you do, STOP giving them money.
even if you are under contract, DON'T give them another cent.
If I was you I'd get a few quotes from foriegn companys to redo your site, weigh them up with what you have paid these people and if the difference is big consider taking them to court, main or small claims.
NOt sure if you have the same system we have, but we have whats called the 'fair trading act' which pervents people doing what these people are doing.
take it up with either your lawyers or legal aid, citizens advice etc (which are free).

As for the copyright isssue, you didnt do it, do arent to blame, however you are aware of it, so doing nothing makes you a 3rd party to it, write a letter to this web firm your using asking for them to remove/replace the stolen copywritten code. this will protect you if Thomas Brattli decides to take it further (chances are slim, but better be safe than sorry), keep a copy of this letter.

good luck.

p.s. reason i said foreign companys is a lot of web designers know others in the busines, going off shore or outta state would run the risk of finding someone that knows them very slim.

I agree that the fee in and of itself is reasonable.

However.......you aren't gettiing quality work, you aren't even getting a complete job.

Meta tags...they haven't done them.
They have given you no keywords or description, no robots follow - index etc. etc.

I'm finding the deal with the page titles to be unreal, my God!

While the fee would be reasoable were you getting what a developer should be doing for you, for what they are doing I would say yes, they are ripping you off.

There is a lot of work involved in developing and testing a site, more that the average person realizes I think. But you , the client have every right to expect the site to be top-notch for the money you pay.

Well, as a web developer with relatively diverse skills and experience, I would have to agree that you have been overcharged for what you have received. In my time I have never gone NEAR that kind of money for any quote, but therein lies a difficult task in web design - quoting.

It seems many wed design firms are in the habit of grossly over-quoting, fearing that not doing so may see them come out of the job at a loss. Without a lot of project experience, and case senarios to refer to, it is very difficult to judge the magnitude of work and time involved for a website project in the early stages of consultation and client-needs analysis.

It seems you have been charged for alot of time that perhaps hasn't, in the end, been spent on your site. There is certainly nothing ground-breaking techno-wise, and as has been mentioned, some of the techniques (and reasoning)used are certainly less than professional.

Obviously there are many Australian design firms who offer better quality than this - for much less money, so I don't think there is any need to bolt to an overseas company, but certainly -shop around.

As a guide, my firm charges AU$90/hr for both web dev and graphics design. So you would have had over 400 hours with us! That is ALOT of work.

While I agree with alot of what has said, I would offer one perspective: how much of that money was for changes the company made, compared to initial development?

While this point doesn't invalidate any of the comments about the basics of web design (page titles, etc) I don't think any of us can reasonably say the company was overcharged without knowing how much work actually went into the site. Do you have itemized bills, so you can see where every minute was spent?

The reason I bring this up is I have a client, and the site is very large, but the cost of the site is so far higher than I would have dreamed just looking at the site. I bill hourly and itemize every hour that is worked on the site (and have several people working on the site that do the same). The thing is, the client has changed his mind a few times, having us go in completely new directions. I'm not going to start the count over or expect people to work for free just because he changed his mind. Also, there have been other projects he's had my company work on, that you won't necessarily see if you just look at the page itself.

Therefore, my advice is to first of all find out if the bill has been itemized and start looking at that. Talk with the people who were in charge of developing the site content and see if there were any major changes along the way (new graphics, different navigation, additional sites, etc). You may find the hours billed are entirely reasonable based on what was given to them.

****

HOWEVER. Going forward is another story. Considering their lack of the BASICS I would definitely cease working with this company, if financially feasible.

Hope this helped,
Tiffany

i agree with most of what's been said here. the work is crap, and you could find much better quality work for 1/2 that price.

not to mention some places give discounts to non-profit organizations.

Just thought I'd let anyone interested know that we met with the web development company yesterday in relation to the problems with our site. It was a very non-confrontational meeting; I simply asked questions and presented problems and let them answer, without questioning their responses (ie. I let them bury themselves ...).

They have changed excuses re the lack of titles and meta tag problems and tried to lay blame on one of our staff members for forgetting to add the titles (they claim we were going to do this from our end to save money, amazingly enough!) and creating the errors in the meta tags - which she says is simply untrue. They also described developing meta-tags as part of 'phase two' of our site development - a phase we've not even entered yet, despite the site being up for over 6 months. I was a bit stunned by that ...

I also discovered that the login and password system they have developed for our members (but not implemented) is totally non-secure (eg. Login1 matched with the password of PWD1). To make it secure and add a bit more functionality they quoted us 2 further days work on top of the 12 hours they've already done. I had a quote from their opposition to do all of the work completely from scratch in 6-8 hours - and I didn't have to tell them it needs to be secure.

With regard to the copyright issue re the DHTML menu on our site they seemed a bit suprised we'd worked that out and stated that the script is made up of 'bits and pieces' that they have 'around the place' - so none of it is their work and probably all of it breaches the copyright of a number of people. From what they said they could see no problem with that.

Re the problem of the menu not being compatible with all browsers and at larger resolutions they simply said they don't support those browsers or resolutions ... They seemed to have no idea of the necessity to have a text menu to back up the DHTML.

The poll they are claiming it will take 8 hours to modify and implement sounds no different to the thousands of free ones available online. I think even with my very limited knowledge I could get it working myself in 8 hours!

And they are still saying there is no alternative but to have them spend 6-8 days creating a decent discussion board for us and that this would require an ongoing maintenance contract with them. They were unable to suggest any other alternatives because we are on a shared server.

I didn't really get a strong feeling that they have deliberately ripped us off, but more that they have almost no clue what they're doing, no right to charge the money they do, and are very unprofessional. Needless to say we will do no further work with them, but amazingly enough when the meeting was over I got the distinct impression that they felt they had satisfied us and were expecting us to do more work with them! We have had a quote from an opposition company to create a totally new and vastly improved site with all of the extras we would like (plus decent navigation, meta tags AND titles) for less money than they are quoting just for the extras ... Incredible.

Wish us luck with the next step! And thanks to all of those people who responded to my posts - the information has been extremely helpful.

Bug

That's amazing! I wonder how many other companies have been treated to their over charging?

Good luck with the new site and don't forget that we are always here to offer advise if you need it

That part about the discussion board is just funny. 6-8 days ?? LOL. How much is vBulletin again? Something like a couple hundred bucks USD... There's another one where you could probably have something working yourself in much less time!

Meagan, that astounds me too - and I barely know anything about such matters! My thinking is that there are just so many discussion boards out there run by such a diversity of people - so logically it simply cannot be that difficult to do.

The issue, these people say, is that we're on a shared server so vbulletin won't work and we'd need something specially designed. I asked them (after a friend suggested it) to put it onto an Apache server, but they don't know how to do that or even how to locate an Apache server for us. Can someone tell me out of interest what other solutions there might be? The designers just kind of shrugged about it and seemed to think it's just one of those things with no real answer and such is life ...

Bug

Quote: Originally posted by Sparklebug
The reply was that they don't have any skills in Apache or Perl so it's not possible.

I suspect the above statement is the real issue behind their hemming and hawing. They have no Apache or Perl skills or knowledge whatsoever, so they simply have no friggin' clue how to accomplish this.

The thing is, it's not that hard. With no programming background at all, I've learned the basic unix/telnet commands and have taught myself to edit and configure perl/cgi scripts. I've installed free and low-cost scripts that run message boards, polls, password protection, flat text database functions, site search engines, and more . . .

It's your decision, but if it were mine, I'd fire them post-haste and find someone who knows what they're doing.

Quote: Originally posted by Sparklebug

The issue, these people say, is that we're on a shared server so vbulletin won't work and we'd need something specially designed.

This makes no sense whatsoever. A shared server meaning what? other websites on it? so what? this has no bearing on whether or not vbulletin will run and is the most ignorant line theyve fed you yet.

Sparklebug
About vBulletin (I'll address each issue as I come to it)
You can run vBullet on a shared hosting service (I wouldn’t only recommend one instance of the Forum tho - We must think of everyone else on the server)

On another note
If you would like I can install vBulletin for you and customise vBulletin for nothing (this is just an honest offer I am not asking for anything in return) Heck I will even teach you would to use the thing

I live in Australia my self and am ashamed that a company could do that to you they have blatantly ripped you off and I wish there was something you could do to maybe recoup a little of your money back but unfortunately you aren't able too

$3000 Dollars for a search engine on your site?
That’s just outrages I can install that for free too and can have in done within an hour (Depending on what search tools you want)

And about the Poll I can install that also and have it up and running within an hour or much less I could even teach you how to work with getting things like that set up

Anywho I am offering my for free with the best intentions at heart I can do all that you want and more and I am more then willing to spend a few hours explaining how to set these things up your self!

Anyway if you want to contact me please feel free to do so and I will be most happy to give you a hand!

Here is my Email
BenMichels@bigpond.com

Yours sincerely
Ben Michels

Ripping off an ethics centre? oh, the irony.

I do a lot of non-profit work and unfortunately, they are quite often easy prey for price gougers. It is disturbing to hear some of the horror stories.

Tiffany makes a valid point below. We are really only hearing one side here but from the sounds of it, you've been nastily overcharged.

Wait. I really dislike competition-bashing. I would have charged far less. How does that sound?

As a non-profit group, I would recommend that you look at offers from folks such as Zacrifice rather than wasting hard-raised funds. There are many talented designers/developers out there who are just starting out and would be happy to do something like this as a "portfolio piece"

For what it's worth, I rather like the design of this site. Although there are certainly issues here and there, my beef is with the pricetag rather than the product.

If you need any ColdFusion/Database work done on the site let me know...

I have been appalled at the lack of expertise offered by this so called "web design company" and I would be happy to help you out where I can...