Steve Fenton

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Wednesday, 13th August 2008

I hope I haven't fooled too many people with the headline. This isn't about design errors or code errors, it's actually about a problem I come across on a monthly basis.

When a business decides it needs to get a website, the people in charge talk about it quite a bit before they decide to take the plunge. At some point, they will mention it to someone who says the following doom-filled phrase:

"I know someone who does websites!"

This doesn't sound all that terrible, but what happens next is that they recommend a friend of a friend who happens to have put together a website once or who is studying design at college, or who has some other tenuous connection to the world of web design. From this point onwards, here are the various stages where things go wrong. For the purposes of this article, we'll assume you're getting a website from Bob's son!

The Quote

Most people starting out as a freelancer will quote a stupidly low price. If they knew how mant hours they were going to spend on the project, they would realise that the amount they are quoting is nowhere near enough. You may think that this is fair enough if they want to build a portfolio, but the silly price results in any the following issues:

• After ten or twenty hours, they actually lose interest in the entire project and it becomes an abortive piece of work.
• They realise that nobody has paid for a domain or hosting and they have to surprise you with additional expenses.
• The quote is so low, it isn't taken seriously and they don't even get the work.

The Quality

The only way to get a good website is to pay someone who has plenty of experience. Not only do you want your website to be a good reflection of your business or organisation (you want it to look good), there are lots of details that Bob's son hasn't found about yet. An experienced web developer will know all about the following:

• Usability
• Accessibility
• World Wide Web Consortium coding standards
• Supporting multiple browsers
• Search engine optimisation

Bob's son doesn't know about any of this and it will end up causing problems.

The Maintenance

So you've got a website from Bob's son and you're actually happy enough with it. Now you need to change something. The prices page or your contact details or something along those lines. Maybe you want to add a new page to tell people about a new product or service. In any case, this is where you hit problem-central...

• Scenario A: Bob's son has gone missing and you have no idea how you're going to get the changes made.
• Scenario B: Bob's son wants cash and as he registered the domain to himself he's going to hold your website hostage until he gets some.
• Scenario C: Bob's son realises that what he gave you isn't maintainable as he's placed your contact details on every page and would have to update them all individually in order to change your dialling code - so you have to pay too much for such a simple change.

The Exit

If it hasn't all gone wrong already, the domain name or hosting account comes up for renewal and Bob's son has changed his email address.and your website suddenly dissapears. You find out when a customer happens to mention it to you.

The New Beginning

It's entirely possible that things will go well and Bob's son turns his hobby into a proper business and sorts out all the details, such as how much updates cost, how long they will take and the timing and cost of domain and hosting renewals. The problem it, a lot of the time it fails and it can fail at any of the stages noted above.

I find out about these failures as this is when people send me an email or phone me up asking for help. By the time they've got to me, they are terribly fed-up with the whole website idea. I have recoved websites and domains for people or set up new websites where things have proved irrecoverable and in the end, things have worked out alright. In fact, if it goes wrong, people are more likely to end up with a decent website as they are willing to approach a professional to do the job, be it a freelance-developer or a web design agency. If Bob's son manages to pull it all off without a hitch, the quality of the website is likely to be poor either because of a lack of experience or because of the bad-tools that have been used.

The same problems have probably been encountered by more established industries. I wonder how many people suffered this process because Bob's grandad "knew how to fix a car" back in the sixties! If you want your car serviced, you go to a garage. You still get to choose how much you pay, as you can select a quick and cheap establishment or a main dealer / specialist - but would you let your motor fall into the hands of a friend of a friend?!

The lesson here isn't really aimed at customers buying a website - it's aimed at people who fancy having a bash. Before you get started, have a good think about what you can give people, how long it will take, how much it will cost and what you need to do to keep the website ticking over. If you can't honestly give the customer a good experience, the fact that you only charged fifty-quid doesn't make up for the poor experience the customer will be left with!