WEB DESIGN ETHICS - PART IV

In our last WDE article we covered the client meeting. Let's presume that it went well because you turned up on time, told them everything with an honest and straight forward approach, and your inspired confidence throughout.

Now they're expecting you to provide a quotation for the work. A nice simple job, yes?

It might surprise many to know that this particular task is one that we, as a company, spend more time on pre-project than anything else. We include the meeting in that. If a meeting takes 2 hours - we're probably going to spend the best part of 4-6 hours on writing the quotation. Surprised? You shouldn't be.

A quotation is a quotation - yes?

Well no, it's not. We never provide quotations. We provide a 'Recommendation and Proposal' document. It encompasses a quotation, but to simply send a single sheet of paper with a price somewhere on it wouldn't be doing our job properly.

If you're a freelance developer working from home and thinking 'ah, but you're company and that doesn't apply to me - my clients don't want that' - well we'd strongly disagree. It applies to everyone, no matter how large or small your clients may be.

In web design there are so many aspects that comprise a quotation that it is a very common mistake for designers to send a simple price sheet. By doing so you do yourself a huge injustice - and you also expose yourself legally.

Why the detail?

If your quotation said 'The provision of a corporate identity website for XYZ Company of 5 pages' with a price after it, what on earth does that mean? What are you going to do when part way through the project the client says 'Hang on, I told you that I wanted the Services page to have 3D visualisations of the products, that people could rotate and view at various angles' - yet you have no recollection of it whatsoever because he never said it?

Your quotation is so open and loose that you've probably given the client the perfect opportunity to get out of it - and whether you like it or not, some clients will try to do that. It happens to the best design companies - the bad apple. In fact it happens to companies in every industry and you're working in one that is open to interpretation unless you specify exactly what you mean in your document.

There is nothing stopping you putting an Executive Summary page in your document - the sheet your client will turn to straight away to see if the price is suitable. Include it, but you really do need to back it up in a lot of detail.

If you're thinking that we're talking about Project Scope, then yes you'd be right - but there is a lot more to it then simply saying what the scope of your work will be.

Let's see what we mean.

So what should I be writing?

In our opinion, and we respect those of others and welcome feedback, we believe in presenting a client with a document that is a set of recommendations. Those recommendations are drawn from our meeting(s) with them and our subsequent investigations into their company, their sector, the designs we'll be proposing and where they want to position themselves in the online marketplace.

To begin with, start off with a cover sheet. Give yourself a professional and formal face set the tone appropriately. On this, or perhaps in the body of the document if you prefer, include the following:

1. Title
2. Full client name and address
3. Your reference (an internal reference)
4. Date of issue
5. Valid until date

For those of you that wonder why a Valid Until Date is required, well it's a matter of personal choice. We do so in order to schedule work accordingly and not get drawn into a situation where a client comes back after 3 months and wants to go ahead when your costs or circumstances might have changed.

Terms of reference

We're big fans of terms of reference. You don't want to be repeating the client name throughout the document and it's much easier to refer to 'the client' if you've defined who that is earlier. You can do so for yourself too, with you becoming 'the company' or a suitable abbreviation of your company name.

Disclaimers

Make sure you include them because literal interpretation is a funny thing that isn't at all funny if you land yourself in court!

It doesn't have to be complicated, but you should cover basics such as the fact that the quotation is valid for X amount of days, that you reserve the right to withdraw the proposal at any time (up to placement of order), that to progress the proposal to a valid order you'll need an order number and any fees you demand as part of that, that you won't be held responsible for any changes beyond your control (particularly if there are third parties involved).

Think carefully about other possible factors that may affect you. Each business is different and there could be elements that impact you and need disclaiming but remember to be reasonable. If you disclaim responsibility for everything don't be surprised if you don't get an order.

A disclaimer isn't an excuse for responsibility entirely. It is there to cover areas beyond your control or to limit your liability in a way that can be interpreted as reasonable.

Origin

Give your client a brief summary of how you've come to the point you're at. Did they contact you, were they referred to you, did you contact them and what meetings have taken place and where. It helps to refresh their memory and emphasises the process you've conducted to date.

Then, write a brief paragraph along the lines of "It was agreed that the company would supply this document for consideration by the client. In doing so, we formally propose its content and pricing for the provision of a website etc." or in words that you're comfortable with.

The Detail

There are so many items we could list in here, all of which are dependent on the type of project you're proposing, that it would be impossible to cover.

However, there are a number of items that you should give serious thought to.

Firstly, this is a proposal. You've not decided the design and full structure of the site yet (unless it is a set 3, 5 and X page package that some companies offer) so you should concentrate on limits rather than set numbers of pages.

For example, "Up to 12 pages" or "Up to 50 photographs in a Gallery forming" and so on. If you don't set such limits you can find yourself with a very big problem when a project defined as small becomes anything but small.

It is also imperative that you stress the responsibility of the client for the supply of copy text and images (unless you're providing that service too).

On the latter, images, we firmly believe in the statement "of a suitable quality not to detract from the quality of the remainder of the site". In our experience very few clients have images, or can take photographs, that are immediately suitable for a site even after a Photoshop Magician has waved their wand.

You might want to offer the taking of photographs through an associate or through your own company if you feel capable of taking pictures of adequate quality.

If you're going to be providing 3 design concepts to begin with, say so. Explain that once a draft design is agreed upon, that you'll not drop that design on a whim and start all over again just because they have gone off the look of a site they're now familiar with.

Experienced web designers may be smiling at this point. If you're going to be embarking on a lengthy project, you'd be amazed how quickly that refreshing and ground-breaking design will become uninspiring to a client. They'll be seeing it all the time through the design process and if you think about it.seeing something all the time removes the novelty and appeal. Be wary of it.

We also believe in stressing any timeframes you will be working in. If a client doesn't meet their commitment to that timeframe you have to be in a position to be compensated for any impact that has on your company and its other commitments to other clients. In the position of supplier you have to be accepting of circumstances that may hinder progress, but you also need to be able to recognise when someone is taking that to the extremes.

Make sure you take the opportunity to highlight any technical limitations of your proposal. Similarly, make a point of mentioning that your site will work in IE 7, 8, Opera, Firefox, Safari, Chrome etc (presuming it will!) because you're emphasising and justifying the proposal with your level of attention to detail. Many clients won't even think about that, and this type of detailed recommendation is your opportunity to show how much effort you'll be putting in to their project.

The quotation

We're going to leave the actual 'Quotation' side of the document for Part V of this series of articles. The reason is because of the care you need to put into it and the attention we want to pay to it.

There is more than enough in this page for you to be thinking about already and if you skip to the right hand column you'll find one of the extra benefits of the type of document we're recommending.