Hi all,
I have had a site designed by a web designer "apparently" and in my opinion it is somewhat ghastly. Could you proffessionals out there give your honest opinions. Don't worry, I can take it.
If you use the google tool bar, cached page tool, you can still see what the site looked like before. I think i've made a big mistake

http://www.pedralbacon.com

Thank you

Looking at the code, it just looks like a standard template.

There are bits of the site that are good. The currency coverter is a great idea and if the site was in Spanish when you click the flag, that would be a good idea too.

Now the bad bits:

The site seems to have covered every shade of blue on the spectrum. Cyan for the top banner, pale blue for the sides and text, dark blue as the main background. And the pale font on only slightly darker background, well I can see some people struggling to read that. Simplicity is key for readability. Not everything on the screen has to be a different colour.

Also purple links on a mid-blue background is a bad indea.

I have just run a check at an 800 x 600 resolution and at that low resolution you have horizontal scroll bars.

Where with vertical scrollbars you simply scroll down, but horizontal you have to scroll across which will put a lot of people off your site before they've even read it. Although 800 x 600 is becoming less popular there is still a fair amount of web users that still use this low resolution. Any good web designer would have known this and designed the site to compensate for this low resolution.

I'm sure I've seen that logo before. Is that one you've designed (in that case I'm sorry) or your designer. I think it is a template also.

Lastly, the animated pictures are tacky, dated (I fell out of love with them in 1999 when I just had started out) and as theres too many, they just make you dizzy. They might look fun for a while, but the novelty will wear off very quickly.

I advise you either give this guy a swift boot on the backside and tell him to do it properly or demand your money back.

HTH

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Deb Harrison
DVH Design
Essex Web Design

Thanks Dharrison.
I thought it looked pretty amature and it's kind of nice to think that a proffessionals opinion is the same as mine. Did you manage to have a look at the old site through google cached pages? Would you recommend that I change it back?

Thanks

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Spain Forum
Yecla

Oh yes. Without a doubt.

Beats me why you changed it. :)

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Deb Harrison
DVH Design
Essex Web Design

I like the way the designer has retained copyright.
Hmmm.

I'd start again.

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Simply Clicks | SEO | SEO Training| Pay Per Click Advertising | Search Engine Powered Marketing

I can't believe this designer actually thinks he made improvements. This new site looks awful. :(, I hope you didn't pay for this. It'd be comparable to someone running a red light, smashing into your car. Then getting out and demanding you pay them for "improvements" the've done to your car. I don't want to sound too harsh, but image is everything, especially with you doing construction. I'd highly reccommend changing back, until you can get a re-re-design done.

Hopefully not too harsh sounding. If so I do apologize.

Msanders,
Thanks for taking the time. Not too harsh at all. I have a good ming to quote these comments when we next communicate. No names mind.

all of your comments are very much appreciated

Thank you

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Spain Forum
Yecla

I agree with everything that has been said and I would add that the site could benefit from having a thorough spell checking. Also, if you decide to have the site translated into Spanish, you may want to make sure that you obtain a proper translation. The bit there now in Spanish about the section being under construction reads as if it were written by someone who flunked the first year of high school Spanish.

Hey there, yeah - I'm pretty new here but have been working in the iinternet design industry since 1993. I agree that your previous site was a better effort. The new site is a simple dreamweaver template that (in my opinion) uses a pretty terrible combination of colours. Good things are that because it has been created as a dreamweaver template (I hope it's been done properly!!) then it should be fairly easy to make changes.

Just some questions (and feel free to not answer them if you like):
- did you look at the designers previous work? Was it like this?
- how much (don't want to embarrass you) did you pay?
- did you give any specifications or requirements to the designer?

The reasons I'm asking are that sometimes I have found a 'design house' consists of a group of individuals of varying skill levels. The portfolio that exists for them contains the BEST of the sites that have been done. I am sure that no-one here would put this site on their portfolio.

Also I feel that the old saing 'you get what you pay for' still stands. Occaisionally you'll get some fantastic results for relatively little outlay - but these results are rare. You can save yourself a lot of money by using a good designer (read a little more expennsive) and doing a lot of the prep work yourself and with your staff and friends. Work on colours, logo ideas, content for the site (write dot points and get a talented writer friend to write the copy!), navigation and a brief list of things you want to feel and see when you visit the site. A good designer will give you a few mock-ups first and let you refine from there, don't settle for something that you are not happy with and trust your gut instincts on wether you like it or not. People are going to judge your website on its initial appearance to them normally within 3 seconds so make it stand out! Also do some browing and find some sites that you like and mention these to the designer - and mention what you like about them. It'll make it easier for them to base mockups on and much easier and quicker (ie cheaper) to do.

Hope that helps,

Michael

Remember you are the customer and if you're not happy with the design you should tell your designer. Any reputable designer will make changes until you ARE happy. I agree with most of the comments above, but I'd be more concerned about the copy. Frankly, it's a dull as dishwater. Quite often a site that looks badly designed will do great business on the strenth of its copy. What are the benefits? Why should your customers do business with you?

Your copy need to grab your vistors attention and guide them down the sales path.

Steve

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Small Business Website Designer | Create Your Own Web Site
Small Business Web Consulting, Website Design Solutions, Hosting & Marketing

A quick look at the "designer's" site reveals all:

www.madcow dot me dot uk/

In fairness he does not claim to be a designer, but a "computer expert" and states "I have many years experience of using, formatting, repairing and maintaining computers..."

Not a word about design experience and with good reason, his own site is appalling!

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Paul Bilton design services ~ Sites not Sights

Everything about the new "design" is wrong, wrong colors, wrong look, wrong feel, you were better off with the previous incarnation.

It's a designers responsibility to ensure the client is happy with the results so I'd get a refund if you paid for it.

Good luck with the next design ;-)

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Street Racers UK - Car Modifying Online
Tickle Site UK - A FUN place to be!!

What is really bugging me, is that the "web Designer" (I use the term loosely) uploaded it to your site without checking with you first.

Obviously they didn't check that you liked the design first, by uploading it to their own site so no one else sees it?

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Deb Harrison
DVH Design
Essex Web Design

I would have never hired the designer after I saw his/her site.

1. The header should tell about your business. You have less then 3 seconds to grab your visitor and the header helps to do this. Your header needs images and text that tell about your site.

2. Dark blue background with white text is a little tough on the eyes.

3. The web designer has almost as much footer space at the bottom for his logo as you do for your text.

Very little was changed from the first site to the second one. Looks like he changed the background color and moved some stuff around and that was it.

I would start over.

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

Hi all,
I am really sorry but I have a huge confession to make. The site in question is not owned by me. I am the designer of the first incarnation, Once I had uploaded the site and stupidly gave the client the password, he changed the login and appointed the new "designer" to take over. I have not been paid, received a phone call, had any phone calls answered, ect. This is after hours of free consulting, spoon feeding him all of the whats and wheres of setting up a web site. I posted it this way because I knew I'd get a better response to the post and indeed I did. I just can't imagine what they are thinking, When I took the job on the client stated that he wanted it to look professional as it was the company image.
I posted here because the community here have helped me learn design techniques over the last couple of years and are honest and very helpful. Now I know I have genuine remarks and in a strange kind of way all of your comments have made me feel slightly better.

Thanks all and once again, Very sorry for the deception.
randelld

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Spain Forum
Yecla

Randall... Randall... Randall your deception was unecessary and we would've made the same comments even if you'd told us the truth.

<smak> don't do it again :-)

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Street Racers UK - Car Modifying Online
Tickle Site UK - A FUN place to be!!

Tut, tut, Randell. Fibbing and all that.

At the end of the day I just say what I see. What does the customer think of it?

The other designer can't be all that competitive, they haven't got a website for a start(not an obvious one anyway).

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Deb Harrison
DVH Design
Essex Web Design

I have no idea what he thinks because he will not answer the phone to me. He didn't pay me for the site i did. You live and learn.

Cheers Guys

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Spain Forum
Yecla

I have no idea no idea what he thinks. he is avoiding me, remember? Non payer...

Live and learn

Cheers Guys

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Spain Forum
Yecla

Oh well he'll learn when no one visits his site and his business goes belly up.

Whats the saying? (*points fingers at foot and shouts) BANG! OW, my foot!!

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Deb Harrison
DVH Design
Essex Web Design

heh... *stern look* :)

Yeah, the same comments would have been forthcoming.

Probably a new thread but does anyone have any tactics for dealing with this? I've never had this problem myself but have a graphic designer who has had this issue before. I guess I rely on really getting to know my clients before working with them, but I know my designer prefers email to the phone and face to face meetings.

by "this" of course I mean non-paying clients.

Michael

I don't quite know why it is, but web designers seem particularly vulnerable to poor/non-paying clients.

It is now 5 years since I was stung. Not for too much, but I was keen to get on with the site. The client was delighted and even stated so in an email. But having spent a number of hours developing the design, the client informed me that someone else would now take over the site who would do it cheaper than my quote. I sent a bill for the work done and it was never paid despite a number of acrimonious letters on the subject. I could have gone to court, but for about $200, I didn't think it worthwhile.

So what do I do now? I never start any work without some sort of payment first upfront. This is usually 50% to start and 50% to finish. (Can be 33%/33%/34% for long /large jobs.) Naturally if you control the hosting, you can also suspend non-payers, which I have done twice. (Here the clients were not bothered at all, as this was clearly what they were used to. In both cases once I had been paid, I wrote declining to accept any more business from them.)

The upshot is that no new customer ever complained about paying upfront. In fact the seemed to have expected it.

There are still some grey areas. I quoted a new potential client a couple of weeks ago, they liked my portfolio and prices and wanted to discuss it. This involved an hour to their offices, a 2 hour meeting and an hour back. I prepared an invoice for 50% of my quote and took it with me. At the end of the meeting I handed over the bill and left it that if they want to move on and see some designs they will have to pay. If they don't I have wasted 4 hours. But this is what happens in every sales organization and I have to accept the loss. If they accept the quote and pay I have already written in the cost of the visit...

So, Randell the answer is don't get yourself in that situation. I know 'brain-picking' phone calls are hard. But I think you have to say after giving reasonable advice, "I'm sorry, but this is the part of the service that is restricted to my paying clients" and simply end the conversation. Be aware that genuine potential clients will understand this. I'm sure you would - and if a person is like that before they are a client, imagine how they will be when they are!

If it is any consolation, my non-payer above, went on to pay for her site designed by someone else only after 4 months and then only paid 50%. I doubt your xe-potential-client will be a free spender either. You're better off without him...

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Paul Bilton design services ~ Sites not Sights

Paul,
You have some very good points there. I normally put the site onto my own server and put a redirect onto their server, until full payment.
This guy had payed some up front but then wanted the site in Spanish and about 10 property pages added to both English and Spanish versions. It was this part that I stupidly put up without payment.

The way I normally go about it is to produce the basic design, put it on my own server. If they like it and want me to carry on they need to pay x amount.
Then once complete, they have to pay the rest to get the site transfered to their own domain.

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Spain Forum
Yecla

Awful site , looks like someones first or second attempt, start again

Id agree with taking 50% up front and not releasing the website to the client until full payment or even better host it on your own server and sell the the hosting as well ,if they dont pay turn it off!

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