I paid $2,500 for this site and I want to know if it was worth it. So be brutally honest.

It's a flash site, and I've seen other flash sites that won't work at all with the tab key. Your's works fine with just the tab key. That's a plus.

It does seem a bit small on my 1024 x 768 monitor and I am not able to make the font any larger. So that knocks out anybody who can't see very well.

It does seem a bit plain and the resolution is lousy. When I resize my browser to 800 x 600 the page still doesn't fit on my screen and I have to scroll down to view the entire page.

In my humble opinion, you paid about $2,300 too much.

Snowflakegirl

http://www.paperchrismons.com

Remember...you specifically said to be brutally honest. Since that's a specialty of mine (the brutality, that is), I'm gonna let 'er rip.

Keep in mind that, when you read this, I really do have the best of intentions. I'm pointing things out to you because your posting of your hyperlink indicates that you want your site to succeed and you're taking steps to ensure that it happens. The sites that succeed have owners/managers/presidents/employees that take active roles in the success of their sites, and you're eventually going to have one of those sites.

First of all, I'm going to say what you will probably find most people will agree with me on...what in the hell was whoever designed this thing thinking? There is absolutely no logic whatsoever, from either a business or a design perspective.

To be more specific:

1. As snowflakegirl pointed out, the site was done entirely useing Macromedia Flash. The basic purpose of Flash is to provide animation/accents/visually dynamic elements to a site.
   
   As you can see from your site, there is absolutely nothing that requires animation or an accent. This site could just have easily been done in plain HTML at a much cheaper cost.
   
   The only possible reason I could come up with for using Flash is to be able to use the specific font your designer selected for the body copy. If the site were done in regular HTML using plain text, that font would not be available since it isn't a common one.
   
   However, that's an insufficient reason to use Flash by itself.
   
   In the case of the headers/menu, these could have been done using graphics as well.
   
   Search engines (mostly Google) are only just starting to figure out how to index Flash, and at last check, they haven't yet been able to index the text within. (I'm only about 99.9% sure of this, however.)
   
   Plain text (like this board has) is much better fro a search engine point of view.
   
2. The first level of the menu should take you to a writeup immediately. I clicked on "About Us" and saw a blank. That means I have to make an extra click to actually get to read something. Sure, it's only one extra click, but that requires people to be able to figure that out and actually go through the process of clicking. That's just not gonna happen in a lot of cases.
   
3. I don't know who came up with the slogan, but the "building kingdoms" part really doesn't make a lot of sense. Before I did the two-click routine to read the "The Firm" page, I thought it was some kind of construction/architecture company. I would never have associated your company in a million years with business consulting...especially with the "Serving people" part before it.
   
   Maybe it should read: "Serving Individuals and Businesses...Building Net Worth", or "Helping Individuals, Businesses and Non-Profit Organizations Grow", or something similar. But the word "kingdoms" has a medieval connotation and may well lead people to think you're out of touch with what goes on in the modern world.
   
4. The "Our Products" section is very weak. It doesn't actually explain what the products are in any real detail. What are "Four Competencies of a Prudent Man?" (A few sentences without giving the farm away would suffice here.) How do I get my hands on "In Business, Be MEN?" Or is it sold as part of the package? It's not clear.
   
   That section basically says to me: "They have products. Okay...so what?"
   
5. Your Service Request Form is "Coming Soon".
   
6. The contact information is too hard to get at, much as the "About Us" is. In your case, because ultimately this is a lead-based site, the phone number should at least be at the bottom of every page.
   
7. All the Conferences and Seminars pages contain nothing but "Updating Information".

I'm sure there are other things that the other good people on this board will point out to you. However, it is 2 AM on a Sunday morning/Saturday night, and I must apologize because I am getting rather tired. So I'll wrap this up with two thoughts:

1. You paid way too much for this site, and it will generate minimal, if any, ROI. That site isn't even worth the paper it's printed on.
   
2. There are large portions of your site that are incomplete, and I would suspect that anyone with the guts to charge you $2500 for that piece of garbage would charge you at least another $1000 to finish what they should have in the first place.
   
   Cut your losses on this project (or, alternatively, use some of your lawyers on staff to sue the designer(s) involved for incomplete work and/or loss of income), and spend $500-$1000 to hire a professional designer/developer to help you get what you really want (the exact cost would depend on who you hired and how far you wanted to take your site).
   
   To that end, there are quite a few good ones on this board (speed, mikmik, m4k, adbart, snowflakegirl and marciezoob immediately come to mind, but there are quite a few others). Start shopping for a new designer here. I think you'll be a lot happier.

__________________
Toronto Web Design | Search Engine Friendly, Standards-Compliant Layouts | Walk on my Path (my blog)

Search engine spiders will see only this:
McCoy Consultants Ltd. (Your page title)

Humans won't see much more as the text is unreasonably small and fuzzy.

Your company name (McCoy) is also fuzzy - and why is there a comma after 'Consultants' and why is 'LTD' in caps?

Where is the HTML version for those who don't have Flash player - or want to actually read the text?
I would get your 'designer' to build an html version - he has enough budget left to do it.

For comparison I charged US$800 for this www.swapmecredit.com a similar genre, though fewer pages it included the logo and company namestyle design too.

__________________
Paul Bilton design services ~ Sites not Sights

I appreciate the brutal honesty and criticism for the website design. Yes I did charge $2,500. I charged for my experience and expertise and some other crucial points that were not mentioned.

1) The McCoy Group needed a website designed in three days. I was told on Thursday night that they needed it for Monday morning
2) My only resource material was a brochure I was mailed that had many typos and no graphics that I could use.


For the record I have not been paid yet, but I completed the site more than 3 weeks ago. Now the McCoy Group is telling me that the website is only worth 100-300 dollars at most $500.

This is the exact email I just recieved today:

__________________________________________________ __________________

Jabbar,

Based on the feedback from Webpro and Craigslist the site at best is worth $500 in its current state and that is
with the rush fee added in.* When you read the posting you will see that most webmaster thought the price should
have been $100 - $300.
I will speak to Mr. McCoy on when your check will be ready.

(END OF EMAIL)
__________________________________________________ _______________________

I have at least 6 years design experience. I am now doing my own business, and the last three jobs I've worked at my salary was between $26-$30hr.

I worked on this site for at least 30-36hrs. I think that I should at least receive $1000 for my work.

So I will refute and explain some of the reasons for the design I did. If in the end it is agreed that the amount the Mccoy Group is suggesting is what I should be paid then I will take it and leave it at that.

I would only like the judgment to be fair.

I will explain from each authors comments

Paul B...

The brochure I received was fuzzy and I couldn't use the images. I had to scan the logo in photoshop and then re-color it. As far as the comma in Consultants that was from the company's logo, as far as the Ltd. in caps, that was a mistake on my part.

The reason why the website is all in flash and there is no html version is because I knew I had to design the site quickly, so I used flash, because of the fact it can also act like a container which cut down on my time doing the back end programming.

I do not use templates so I sketched out the site first, and paid particular attention to organizing all of the text especially since I had to type all the text from the brochure and edit typos because of the many mistakes in the brochure.


ADAMWebDesign

Actually there was logic to the site. I designed everything using a 6 column grid. I chose pictures that were relative to what the company used in their brochure, The company colors are blue and gray, so I used those colors as well as colors that would add contrast for rollovers and headings. I also checked the usability and made sure that any information that you needed was available in three clicks or less which is a suggestion from Steven Krug's book on web usability. Yes I could have put all the text on one page, but I didn't want the website to look cluttered.

In answer to your specifics,

1) As explained I used flash because it could be used as a container and I didn't have time to do all the back-end programming.

2) When I organized the text for the website I noticed that the about us was separated by firm, mission, and leadership. So instead of making that one page, I gave an option, for organization of text purposes and not to be an eye sore.

3) As far as the building kingdoms, that is the company's slogan mark, so this comment is not to me but the company itself.

4) Again this is also from the company. All I had to use was the brochure and the brochure did not offer any details as to the products themselves.

5) I could have designed the service request form, and I was going to redesign the brochure, but my main focus was to complete the job in the time allotted (three days). Upon payment, completed the request form and thrown in the brochure (which really needs to be updated and redesigned).

6) Good suggestion, yes the phone number could have been put on each page. Thank you for the suggestion.

7) This is again from the company. There was no information to put in for the Conference and Seminar pages. So I left blanks that could be easily updated when needed.


Snowflake girl

Thanks for the plus.

As far as the screen resolution, I designed it with 800x600 screens in mind because as far as I know that is the standard with most screens and I remember that being one of the first tips I was given. Whatever needs to be seen should be on the screen, so the user does not have to scroll down on the page.

As far as you scrolling down etc. you shouldn't have had to, it works fine on most computers. But this is something to be considered thank you.

I also wanted to point out that the images I used were royalty free stock photography. I told the company in order for the images to be clear that they would have to pay for the stock photography.

I appreciate the brutal honesty of my fellow designers. I leave this situation to God first and pray that I am dealt with justly, then I leave it to you my fellow designers.

Please review based on the information then comment on what you think I should have been paid.

For the record I designed the site for the company on short notice with little resource material. Of course there is room for some improvement in content etc but that is not due to lack of care on my part; I used the material provided by the company. I would have been willing to make any necessary changes or corrections once I received payment. I designed the McCoy site and I feel that I delivered on my end of the deal with the given time and resource constraints. With this in mind I feel that the site is at least worth $1000, based on my knowledge, time and my experience and not the mere $100-$300 that is being suggested.

Also please check out http://forums.newyork.craigslist.org/?forumID=89
since the company is basing it's price from the feedback received from WebPro and Craigslist.

Thank you for your time and sincerity.

Jabbar

now you're talking lawyer stuff.

If the hiring company agreed in advance to pay you then they are undoubtedly obligated to pay what you asked. Of course they can always sue to get it back.

Whether you had 3 days or 3 months to design the site is a moot issue. You are the expert, not them. The site is badly designed and you should graciously offer to fix your work and not hand off a basketful of excuses.

There's little more to add to your own admission that you overcharged by 250%!

By the way, through bitter experience I NEVER start a job until I have 50% paid in my bank account - however urgent the client claims it is. How can a website suddenly need building in 3 days anyway? And 50% would have gotten you $250 more than you now say the site is worth.

Finally, I doubt God has too much time for web designers who get the business a bad name...

__________________
Paul Bilton design services ~ Sites not Sights

I'm taking a short break from what's already been an 8-hour day with more to come because I heard about this and, since my comments were mentioned, I felt the compunction to answer.

Then you overcharged in a major way, and I'll elaborate below.
This can go either way. On the one hand, more power to you for taking a challenge like this on. On the other...rushing stuff never leads to anything successful, and based on your "experience", this is something you should know by now.
No...the only resource material you were given was a brochure. From there, you should be able to figure out what the company's about, look at their competition, see what the competition is doing, and at least build a site that would be on a level with the competition.

http://www.tscst.org

Here's a site I redid from nothing more than the logo and the photograph in the top right. It can be done if you really want to.

It's a semi-valid point, but one that can be overcome.
And airing your dirty laundry in public and violating client confidentiality by publishing an email like this is going to make you get your money faster?

You're lucky if you get paid at all at this point. This is incredibly disrespectful.
"The value of something isn't what you price it at, but what it's worth to other people." I learned this from a moving company owner when I was 20 years old, and I pass it on to you.

And your salary at a job has absolutely no relevance to what you can charge as an independent. You're now in a marketplace, not in a job environment. This is an apples to oranges comparison.

Not only that, no person with 6 years' experience in design would slap that thing together, if for no other reason than that of self-respect.

Would you show this to your friends and relatives? Would you show it to a prospective client?
Would you show it to another designer?

I know I wouldn't do any of these if I were you.
So when I screw something up this badly, I should still get paid for it? Hell no. If I told that to most of my clients, they'd throw me out on my rear end and justifiably so.

Good for what you "worked on." The client still has a useless, non-functional, incredibly ugly site that will make them nothing. What about that?

Not only that, as someone pointed out, why are you billing for $2500 for 36 hours' worth of work? By your own math, that values your work at a maximum of $1180 (assuming $30/hour x 36 hours, which gives you full credit). So as far as I'm concerned, you just kissed the other $1320 goodbye with that.

Your problem is that you're making the same mistake that a lot of designers/developers make. Your perception of your skill level is blurring your perception of reality.
Agreed by who, exactly? All you have to do is say "I don't agree" and technically you're off the hook on this comment.

I've got a better idea. How about if three or four of us put sites up against yours that we charged $500-$1000 USD for and we'll see if yours stacks up?

I'll use www.tscst.org as my example.
Great...so you read a book and based the colour scheme on the company logo. That's a starting point.

But what about non-Flash viewers, as someone pointed out?
What about search engines?
What about having a longer menu with submenus along the side, a la WebProWorld?

I never said anything about the text being able to fit on one page either. The text should be in separate pages; I agree with that totally.
What back-end programming? All you've done is put plain text and images places, and the only place for form I saw on the site doesn't even work. If you're going to lie, at least be more convincing than that.

As far as a "container", use a containing div. Easy.

Nice try. Next!
There's not enough text in these pages to justify this. You could have easily done an HTML page with subheaders.

Next!
Point taken. I thought it was, so I never actually specifically blamed you for this.
Again, point taken. If you don't have it, you can't do anything about it. But do what I usually do, and make a big ugly note so that your client sees it and gets you the stuff as quickly as possible in order for you to put it on.
So your logic was to "complete the site", get paid, and then "complete the site". Anyone else see a bit of a flaw in that?

By your own admission, the site's incomplete because you didn't have certain information.
No problem.
Even then, you're missing part of the point. Our input is important, but not as important as the ones that matter most...McCoy's customers.
Nothing. It's not finished yet to a satisfactory stage, and nothing was agreed on for stage-based payments.

So...$0.00.

(Price to be reviewed upon actual completion of work.)

I'm with Paul B on this. You're giving web design a bad name, and you really need to look at the way you do "business".

__________________
Toronto Web Design | Search Engine Friendly, Standards-Compliant Layouts | Walk on my Path (my blog)

I can barely make out the text.I had to put my repair glasses on to read it.They are twice as strong as my reading glasses.Sorry dude but I'd get a refund.of at 2400.

Whether I gave a bad design or not, I realize, why, they sought advice from this group. The majority of you are not real designers and have no real design experience. Maybe good html programmers, but not designers. Most of your sites look like you use templates. But to update on this situation, McCoy Consultants went out of business with a track load of debts.

Granted, I have since re-evaluated the way I do business, I use contracts and seek half up-front; re-reading the advice that was given, it was clearly with bias, some of you saw the money I was suppose to make and were trying to see if you could get in on the pie, lol, and the fact is—you guys were played like puppets, from a company that had no real intention of paying, anyway. Quick to get on your high horses, when truthfully most of your work is subpar.

But all is well that ends well, lesson learned.


Best Regards.

Quote
"Quick to get on your high horses, when truthfully most of your work is subpar."


"Your a WANKER" Is an Australian expession. These words comes to mind while reading your posts. . I am a polite fellow of course and would never actually say it. . .

But I think it . . .

__________________

You have us at a disadvantage, for we have only seen one very poor example of your work so have no concept of your own design skills.

I don't really see that you have contributed anything here and coming back many months later to insult those who now you have to admit 'were or were not' right and caused you to 're-evaluate the way you do business' proves your argument was lost long ago.

From your comments I assume you never were paid. So there as at least some justice...

__________________
Paul Bilton design services ~ Sites not Sights

Quote:

"Your a WANKER" Is an Australian expession. These words comes to mind while reading your posts. . I am a polite fellow of course and would never actually say it. . ."


Tubby, "Your A Wanksta" that's a New York expression, i'm polite as well, but i'm man enough to say it. Wanksta.


Quote:

"From your comments I assume you never were paid. So there as at least some justice..."


Paul B, there was no need to assume, I said it quite clearly. What you couldn't see was that I gave credit were credit was due; but also expressed my perspective on the situation. Take that as my contribution.

Next time, don't assume re-read. Take that as advice. I Had a little more in me to contribute...


Best Regards.

My...my...my... How quickly we throw a temper tantrum. Imho, taking all the answers and reasons given, if you can't take the criticisms without reverting to calling people out of their names and insulting them, then ignore the post. Simple.

As for Paul B's design skills, I have actually been to his web design site and been very impressed. (I only wish that I had the money to hire him.) Where is your online design site and portfolio? Just asking.

Mind you, I am not a pro, but I have received a lot of useful help from these people, and losing your temper over something that you did because you received brutal feedback, is rather childish. I understand that you personally did not ask for the feedback, the closed company did, but all the hostility could have been avoided.

__________________
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