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The $400 Website

It is for a company who wanted to start cheap and newbie web designer who was willing to work cheap.  They got the site up and they can always spend more later.

About the Company who bought the site

• Small consulting company with about 8 employees.

• Specializes in property development, planning, finding  funds, project management.

What about their competitors' sites:

It should be easy to outdo the competitors' sites.  All were designed more than a year ago in the height of the, "we got to have a website" era.  Most are bloated, graphics heavy, slow loading, brochure sites with no services for customers.

• Site 1:  Pretty, but busy and I hate frames. All cap text not readable.  They do have pretty project pages but the frames and very big logo crowd and dominate the content on all the pages.  The "project" pages are almost all graphics (including the text) which make to interminably slow to load. These are horrible without DSL.  They do a good job by listing all their email addresses (but phone numbers would be nice too)   They have a search and FTP.  Lot of good and bad to learn from this site.

• Site 2:  Over designed.  It has a gateway page that's pretty, slow, doesn't tell me anything, and makes me hunt for the entry button.  The home page is murky and fuzzy looking - check out the yellow text - looks fair in Netscape but looks terrible in IE.  Home page is all graphics (slow).  Portal and home pages not styled like the rest of the pages. Good - menus on every page.  Bad - not a complete menu on every page.  They concentrated on single screen pages.  "Career opportunities" is "out of style."  Good - anonymous FTP on "contact" page. "Spotlight project" button doesn't work.

• Site 3:  I like this one the best.  Feel's relatively personal.  This is a showcase but what does this site do for me?  Good - FTP page may be useful for sharing files and drawings with associates, suppliers, or clients.  Blurry front page picture. Better to have no picture that a bad picture.  Doesn't control menu fonts across the pages.  Good - "project gateway" pages are text with small graphics (not slow).   Compare to (very slow) Site 1's "project" pages.  I got a little confused navigating the project pages because they have a menu on left margin and the pictures are a menu as well. No search.

• Site 4:  Canned site with frames, over designed, the background image overpowers everything.  Interesting image map is a project gateway but is it helpful to surfer?  Another map for registration - works better.  "Organization" may be useful in that the page has links to organizations but you'd never know that from the menu.  No names, no bio's no pictures of folks.

What they got:

Graphic design:

• Copied the existing company logo and changed the color from red to blue - looks pretty good.

• Home page graphic (287x287).  It's a  collage of pictures, maps, and text conveying the nature of the firm's services.  Not horrible but not beautiful.  On the other hand a graphic artist would charge $400 for the image alone.

• Top of page graphic with company name and three menu tabs.  Not a top frame, it's just the where the menu is.  Not scalable if they want to add another menu choice.  Look's OK in IE, not so OK in Netscape.

Pages they got:

• Home page. It fits on a single screen. It lists their three services.  Each service links to a pop-up window that has about 125 words that describe the service.

• Project page that does a fair job of covering the types of projects they perform.  There is one link to a text pop-up page and one external link.

• Contact page with address, phone, email etc.

Worth $400?

• Well, they now have a page.  It is simple, easy to navigate.

• It is more pleasant and easy to use than their competitors' sites while ultimately accomplishing just as much.

What did it really cost?

• I estimate the web designer worked about 40 hours including meetings with company staff.  So he made about $10/hr.

• I estimate that the company staff spent 10 hours in meetings, developing the text, and reviewing the site.

• Hosting costs them $30 per month.

Conclusion

It is a modest site that achieves its modest goals.  No bloat, easy to navigate, doesn't promise too much, and cheap.  Not scalable if they want to add new menu choices but they will probably leave it alone.  They  might have to revise the contact list from time to time.

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