Problems Faced With Web Design Projects
In Singapore, there is usually a knowledge gap between clients and web design company. The clients usually have no idea what are the work involved for a web design project and having endless new changes along the way. We have faced a fair share of these problems and we will like to share with you in this article.
Problem 1: Every prospect expects to receive a quotation based on an one-liner requirement.
“Hi, are you able to provide us a quote for a standard e-commerce website by tomorrow?”
Any experienced web designer will know that it is impossible to provide a proper quotation if we do not know what is the prospect’s definition of “a standard e-commerce website”. Everyone has different impression of “standard”. As prospect, you need to take the effort to meet up with the web design company face-to-face so that they can ask you relevant questions to find out your actual requirements. Most of the time, there are many features that are brought out during the discussion which does not fall under the “standard” category.
Problem 2: Requirements are not clearly defined.
If you have engaged a web design company before, you probably learnt that you need to provide very specific details about the end product of your website and how it works. Most of the time, those seemingly minor differences might change the cost drastically. Use lots of website examples to support your requirements so that the web designer knows exactly what you want so as to avoid such incidents from happening.
Problem 3: Due to some top management decision, the requirements have to change.
This is mainly due to poor planning on the client’s end. When this happens, most of the time, the designer will just work on the changes without charging any additional fee to the client, and then have trouble paying his or her bills. The correct practice should be to renegotiate on the contract or include a new change order first before working on any new requirements.
Problem 4: Non-optimal solution due to unknown variables
Sometimes, when we are halfway building a site, we realise that if we used a different approach or platform, the end result will be much better for the client. But we are too far down the path to restart and the current approach does fulfill the requirements. We are unhappy delivering a site that could be done better, and our customers end up with a less than optimal site, but it is easier than having to negotiate with the client again on the deadlines.
Most of the time, there are a ton of variables and many of them are only discovered when the project is well underway. Hence, a thorough groundwork needs to be done to identify all the possible issues that might arise. When there is a change request in the requirements later on and there’s a better approach, we need to let the client know why the new approach will be beneficial to them in the long term. If they have the allowance to extend the project, we can then proceed to make the necessary changes. If not, we will have to adapt with the current approach to fit in the new requirements.
Problem 5: It takes forever to launch the website
Everything starts off fine – the requirements are defined and the vendor is ready to start. But somehow along the way, the project was left on the shelf. So how did this happen? Everything seems so promising at the beginning, how went wrong?
The first reason is because there is no agreed timeline to implement the website. Without an agreed timeline, either party can take their own time to get back to each other. The client might takes forever to provide the content and necessary information. The designer might take very long to respond to change requests.
The second reason is because the client starts to go picky and demanding on the change requests and took advantage on the designer’s good will. The designer will eventually snap and disappear, especially when they felt that there are no longer the “designer” in this project.
To resolve this, a proper timeline and contract needs to be agreed upon before starting this project, so that things will not be left hanging.
We hope this post will help anyone who is looking for web design company to understand more about the problems that might arise during the web project.