Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 15:57:29 +0800, Vicki Berry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I rarely even mention web standards to clients anymore unless they are snip Amen! -- Kay Smoljak http://kay.smoljak.com/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
Regarding charging - like anything, the more experienced you get the faster you get so it's a bit silly to charge across a project on the basis of time spent. I agree with pretty much everything you've said apart from this. Firstly I don't necessarily think that the more experienced you are the *faster* the project goes. In fact I'd say that the more experienced you are the longer certain things can take because you want to do them right. For instance your beginner web designer will probably do everything in Drewamweaver whereas I'll hand code pretty much everything. Secondly, the better you get, the higher your daily rate. Sure you can do things faster but this is reflected in what you charge. I honestly wouldn't know where to start pricing a job if it wasn't based on time and materials. The whole trying to guess what the client is willing to spend approach just smacks of unprofessionalism to me, and makes clients wary of web designers in general. Apart from that I totally agree that you don't need to sell web standards and accessibility. They should be part of your workflow, not an added service. What you should do is sell your clients on the business benefits you provide. Andy Budd http://www.message.uk.com/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
Oh I'm with you there, Andy! I realised after I sent that email that I could have put that better. I agree that the rate you charge is in many ways a reflection of your knowledge and experience, and that knowledge and experience can lead you to put in more effort in some ways. I still think, though, that your knowledge and experience adds to the value your client gets out of your web development service and whether you work it out by a higher hourly rate or by perceived total value, it's not important really. But think of it like this - just say you wrote a web application for a client. Then another client comes along and wants something similar. Do you start from scratch? Of course not. You'll adapt the previous app you built. It might take you 5 hours instead of the 50 it took to develop the first app. Do you only charge for 5 hours? No way. You charge for value to the client... that's the kind of thing I was thinking of. I'm not a programmer but that would equate to me spending half a lifetime(!) researching web standards and charging my first customer for all that time, then charging subsequent customers by the hour (thus a pittance) because it took me less time Before I tie myself into too many more knots - I think we're both saying the same thing in different ways. (I'm still trying to think of a way to put it better. LOL.) :-) Vicki. :-) Andy Budd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Regarding charging - like anything, the more experienced you get the faster you get so it's a bit silly to charge across a project on the basis of time spent. I agree with pretty much everything you've said apart from this. ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
RE: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
Searching for s2store in google returns it as the first result? From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kristof Rutten Sent: Thursday, 25 November 2004 8:26 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument. Hi All, I don't know if you guys experience the same anoying and frustrating talks when it comes to convince a prospect/client of the fact his/her site isn't working for most of the world. -- The fact that it's not build following certain standards, the fact Google is like a blind, numb en deaf person and so on. Finally you have the guy convinced, in comes the next frontpage cowboy. He lowers the price, the target, the standards .. and up up and away, there goes another client. How do you convince your client to spend a little more onthe design, the coding and the usability when the most simple logic doesn't work ? Do you have the same feeling most people don't care about all of the above and keep running around with the idea IE will fix all. Prospects site: http://www.s2store.be Frontpage cowboys: http://www.xperienz.be The prospect is complaining about the fact his site doesn't show up in Google and zhy all of his competitors do. The Google results : http://www.google.be/search?q=site:s2store.behl=nllr=start=20sa=N Remarks, ideas - toughts ? .K
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
Kristof Rutten wrote: How do you convince your client to spend a little more on the design, the coding and the usability when the most simple logic doesn't work ? Remember that most clients don't care a jot about accessibility and web standards. Sell them on the business benefits. However if the clients is more interested in cost than quality, there will always be somebody willing to do the job for less. Rather than blame the clients, you probably need to rethink the market you're aiming at. Andy Budd http://www.message.uk.com/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
RE: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
Yeah, OK. But nothing more. Just the flash items. Not a single product on his site. The prospect is a large sound light reseller. He needs to make a living out of DJ's, Clubs, .. Try to search for one of his specifics on google. Don't you think it's odd that a site with a gazillion products just had 15 links on a search engine? And Google is the most active of'm all. .K From: Brett Walsh [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: donderdag 25 november 2004 10:40To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: RE: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument. Searching for s2store in google returns it as the first result? From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kristof RuttenSent: Thursday, 25 November 2004 8:26 PMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument. Hi All, I don't know if you guys experience the same anoying and frustrating talks when it comes to convince a prospect/client of the fact his/her site isn't working for most of the world. -- The fact that it's not build following certain standards, the fact Google is like a blind, numb en deaf person and so on. Finally you have the guy convinced, in comes the next frontpage cowboy. He lowers the price, the target, the standards .. and up up and away, there goes another client. How do you convince your client to spend a little more onthe design, the coding and the usability when the most simple logic doesn't work ? Do you have the same feeling most people don't care about all of the above and keep running around with the idea IE will fix all. Prospects site: http://www.s2store.be Frontpage cowboys: http://www.xperienz.be The prospect is complaining about the fact his site doesn't show up in Google and zhy all of his competitors do. The Google results : http://www.google.be/search?q=site:s2store.behl=nllr=start=20sa=N Remarks, ideas - toughts ? .K
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
As I'm just now starting to use web standards in my business, and haven't had to yet make the sales pitch, these are just some random thoughts. Why would we have to sell the idea of web standards? Why not just use them? Sell your services like usual, and use all the tools you know to create a fast-loading, accessible and usable site. Your client will be happy with the results, and word will spread. They won't know WHY your sites load quicker, get more visitors, and rank higher in search engines than your competitors, but you can be sure they'll be happy for it and tell everybody they know. I don't see that anybody has to sell web standards. They are self-selling, even if the buyer doesn't understand it. ~john _ Dr. Zeus Web Development http://www.DrZeus.net content without clutter ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
RE: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
I totally agree. But then it comes to budget. And your clients ASKS why your offer is quoted higher. Then you have the explaining to do. It seems like reason isn't among most of the buyers lately ;) Or is this just Belgium... .K -Original Message- From: john [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: donderdag 25 november 2004 11:00 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument. As I'm just now starting to use web standards in my business, and haven't had to yet make the sales pitch, these are just some random thoughts. Why would we have to sell the idea of web standards? Why not just use them? Sell your services like usual, and use all the tools you know to create a fast-loading, accessible and usable site. Your client will be happy with the results, and word will spread. They won't know WHY your sites load quicker, get more visitors, and rank higher in search engines than your competitors, but you can be sure they'll be happy for it and tell everybody they know. I don't see that anybody has to sell web standards. They are self-selling, even if the buyer doesn't understand it. ~john _ Dr. Zeus Web Development http://www.DrZeus.net content without clutter ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 11:06:51 +0100, Kristof Rutten [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I totally agree. But then it comes to budget. And your clients ASKS why your offer is quoted higher. Then you have the explaining to do. I don't really get why your quote should be higher and don't really like that thought as it promotes the idea that standards are hard. If you are proficient with your art, having an average couple of validation errors per page, because of a typo or an unclosed li doesn't really slow things down or raise the project's quote much more than parse errors do when a good programmer is coding PHP or ASP or whatever. -- Manuel a veces :) a veces :( pero siempre trabajando duro para Simplelógica: apariencia, experiencia y comunicación en la web. http://simplelogica.net # (+34) 985 22 12 65 ¡Ah! y escribiendo en Logicola: http://simplelogica.net/logicola/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
I'm not sure I understand why it would cost more to use web standards. Even if it did on the design and build, it would surely even out once maintenance costs were factored in. ~john _ Dr. Zeus Web Development http://www.DrZeus.net content without clutter on 11/25/2004 10:06 AM Kristof Rutten said the following: I totally agree. But then it comes to budget. And your clients ASKS why your offer is quoted higher. Then you have the explaining to do. It seems like reason isn't among most of the buyers lately ;) Or is this just Belgium... .K -Original Message- From: john [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: donderdag 25 november 2004 11:00 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument. As I'm just now starting to use web standards in my business, and haven't had to yet make the sales pitch, these are just some random thoughts. Why would we have to sell the idea of web standards? Why not just use them? Sell your services like usual, and use all the tools you know to create a fast-loading, accessible and usable site. Your client will be happy with the results, and word will spread. They won't know WHY your sites load quicker, get more visitors, and rank higher in search engines than your competitors, but you can be sure they'll be happy for it and tell everybody they know. I don't see that anybody has to sell web standards. They are self-selling, even if the buyer doesn't understand it. ~john _ Dr. Zeus Web Development http://www.DrZeus.net content without clutter ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
on 11/25/2004 10:18 AM Bert Doorn said the following: It's also frustrating to get emails with microscopic text... heh...I didn't notice that myself, since I have HTML turned off in Thunderbird. ~john _ Dr. Zeus Web Development http://www.DrZeus.net content without clutter ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
RE: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 20:40:10 +1100, Brett Walsh wrote: Searching for s2store in google returns it as the first result.? No, the point is that there are no descriptions to entice the searcher to click on that link and that of the many, many pages on the site (have a look - its a fair sized site) there are only a handful of pages on the site. Either Google has only just found the site or it isnt terribly spider friendly; the kiss of death for an e-commerce store! Lea -- Lea de Groot Elysian Systems - I Understand the Internet http://elysiansystems.com/ Search Engine Optimisation, Usability, Information Architecture, Web Design Brisbane, Australia ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
john wrote: I'm not sure I understand why it would cost more to use web standards. Even if it did on the design and build, it would surely even out once maintenance costs were factored in. The problem isn't web standards or not web standards, the problem seems to be quality vs cost. If you do quality work it takes longer and so costs more. If you do a bodge job it gets done quicker and so costs less. Andy Budd http://www.message.uk.com/ ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
Bert Doorn wrote: It's also frustrating to get emails with microscopic text (accessibility issue). Text/plain please? Both Thunderbird and Firefox allow you to set the minimum font size. Accessibility fighting back! As far as your dilemma goes - don't lower your standards (pun intended) for the sake of getting work. If you can't convince them, let them go. A wise and business savvy uncle of mine once told me that in business there are three factors: speed, cost, and quality. At best, you can only get 2 out of 3. Maybe they will come back when the site they get doesn't do what they need it to. I could never understand why there never seems to be enough time to do something right, but always time to do it over. If the lack of traffic from Google is one of their main reasons to redo the site, tell them (in broad terms) why you think Google doesn't like the site. Spiders have very strict dietary requirement: key word seasoned content mixed with links. You don't feed the right, they'll avoid you and rarely come for dinner. ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
Warning my response is long and perhaps rambles a bit -- there are the beginnings of some nice ideas but it's lacking polish - I'm tired. When I pitch for a site I don't talk about web standards and accessibility per se - these are just methodologies I use to deliver results. Web standards and accessibility are invisible to the untrained eye. In my experience clients generally talk about the site working in this browser and that browser as part of their requirements. I take this and guide the conversation towards meeting published standards independent of specific browser technology, ranking well in search engines (using design methods, not SEO), and a having a lower total cost of ownership. The skill is, as with any sales, to speak to the clients desires - push those buttons that turns your client on. The psychology of decision making is that it is an emotional process which is then rationalized with the 'facts'. So if you're pitching to, say, a fashion designer, then using flash (stereotypically the antithesis of accessibility and googleness) could well be the best tool to use for content delivery. [Use flash satay to make it accessible]. The biggest challenge designers face when pitching is how to preserve the value of design in an industry that promises one click professional publishing (yes, I'm looking at you dreamweaver, and dtp in general) in a market that is easy to enter but hard to master. How do you articulate what good design actually is when it is sometimes hard to distinguish from bad design? Good design often just works better, or looks better on a perceptual level and it's hard to pinpoint the 'why?'. I think basing a sales pitch on a specific browser is a huge mistake, as is skewing a design to work with a browsers strengths in a specific climate at a specific point of time -- it runs counter to my view of what web standards are about. Right now, getting things to work in IE is really the only area of designing with web standards that runs the risk of blowing out a design budget, but with experience this browsers quirks can generally be avoided/minimized... So you really need to tell the story of why your 'expensive' design is so much better than you competitors cheap design when, with practice, the methodology for producing a standards design is arguably the same as a non-standards design. Terrence Wood. On 2004-11-25 10:25 PM, Kristof Rutten wrote: Hi All, I don't know if you guys experience the same anoying and frustrating talks when it comes to convince a prospect/client of the fact his/her site isn't working for most of the world. -- The fact that it's not build following certain standards, the fact Google is like a blind, numb en deaf person and so on. Finally you have the guy convinced, in comes the next frontpage cowboy. He lowers the price, the target, the standards .. and up up and away, there goes another client. How do you convince your client to spend a little more on the design, the coding and the usability when the most simple logic doesn't work ? Do you have the same feeling most people don't care about all of the above and keep running around with the idea IE will fix all. Prospects site: http://www.s2store.be BLOCKED::http://www.s2store.be Frontpage cowboys: http://www.xperienz.be BLOCKED::http://www.xperienz.be The prospect is complaining about the fact his site doesn't show up in Google and zhy all of his competitors do. The Google results : http://www.google.be/search?q=site:s2store.be BLOCKED::http://www.google.be/search?q=site:s2store.behl=nllr=start=20s a=N hl=nllr=start=20sa=N Remarks, ideas - toughts ? .K -- *** Are you in the Wellington area and interested in web standards? Wellington Web Standards Group inaugural meeting 9 Dec 2004. See http://webstandardsgroup.org/go/event24.cfm for details *** ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
Terrence Wood wrote: When I pitch for a site I don't talk about web standards and accessibility per se - these are just methodologies I use to deliver results. Web standards and accessibility are invisible to the untrained eye. I always liken this to something like the construction industry: if I hire somebody to build me a house, I don't want them to talk to me about what type of mortar they'll be using. I trust that they'll choose the most appropriate mortar for the job. I'd be much more interested in what colour brick they may use, for instance... So if you're pitching to, say, a fashion designer, then using flash (stereotypically the antithesis of accessibility and googleness) could well be the best tool to use for content delivery. [Use flash satay to make it accessible]. Just wanted to point out that flash satay does nothing to improve accessibility. It only ensures validity of the markup against the xhtml spec, nothing more. Patrick H. Lauke -- _ re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk http://redux.deviantart.com ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
Patrick you are right -- in and of itself flash satay doesn't improve accessibility. But using the object tag properly does - which is what the satay method uses (I use a variation with IE comments). Example (accessible image map, but same principles apply): http://developer.apple.com/internet/webcontent/access.html Another discussion: http://www.corfield.org/coldfusion/accessibility.html Terrence Wood. On 2004-11-26 10:32 AM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote: Terrence Wood wrote: Just wanted to point out that flash satay does nothing to improve accessibility. It only ensures validity of the markup against the xhtml spec, nothing more. Patrick H. Lauke -- *** Are you in the Wellington area and interested in web standards? Wellington Web Standards Group inaugural meeting 9 Dec 2004. See http://webstandardsgroup.org/go/event24.cfm for details *** ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
Something I think you all are missing is that you have taken time to learn about standards and accessibility. I think I can charge more for my services because I have more knowledge about standards. So for me the price may be more expensive - but they are paying for my knowledege and experience - rather than more time and work put into a job. I hope that sounded right? But yeah - if you hire someone who has a degree in software engineering and majoring in Java - they will get more pay than someone who is equally as skilled with Java - but they didn't learn at university... Well thats what I have noticed in life thus far. Anyway - anyone agree??? Jixor - Stephen I wrote: To be honest I don't understand how building using standards could cost more unless you simply don't know what your doing. Its really as simple as that, there is no extra work involved in using standards, if anything its less work. Building using standards is a choice not an extra. If you can't sell standards to your client then you should research the benefits more because time and time again standards based design has more than proven itself, in ways that a business understands. The only reason standards based design may cost more is because its often the difference between crap and at least decent design. However often clients going for the cheapest will have actually wasted their money because the results tend to be so bad. Kristof Rutten wrote: Hi All, I don't know if you guys experience the same anoying and frustrating talks when it comes to convince a prospect/client of the fact his/her site isn't working for most of the world. -- The fact that it's not build following certain standards, the fact Google is like a blind, numb en deaf person and so on. Finally you have the guy convinced, in comes the next frontpage cowboy. He lowers the price, the target, the standards .. and up up and away, there goes another client. How do you convince your client to spend a little more on the design, the coding and the usability when the most simple logic doesn't work ? Do you have the same feeling most people don't care about all of the above and keep running around with the idea IE will fix all. Prospects site: http://www.s2store.be BLOCKED::http://www.s2store.be Frontpage cowboys: http://www.xperienz.be BLOCKED::http://www.xperienz.be The prospect is complaining about the fact his site doesn't show up in Google and zhy all of his competitors do. The Google results : http://www.google.be/search?q=site:s2store.behl=nllr=start=20sa=N BLOCKED::http://www.google.be/search?q=site:s2store.behl=nllr=start=20sa=N Remarks, ideas - toughts ? .K ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help ** -- Chris Stratford [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.neester.com ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
Yes, that is a good point, and is what I was getting at earlier: you really need to tell the story of why your 'expensive' design is so much better than you competitors cheap design There is a joke (loosely paraphrased) about the plumber kicking a pipe and charges $100 for it. When the bill is questioned he says: I kicked the pipe for free. I charged for knowing where to kick it. This is how it is for design I think... Terrence Wood. On 2004-11-26 4:45 PM, Chris Stratford wrote: Something I think you all are missing is that you have taken time to learn about standards and accessibility. I think I can charge more for my services because I have more knowledge about standards. So for me the price may be more expensive - but they are paying for my knowledege and experience - rather than more time and work put into a job. I hope that sounded right? But yeah - if you hire someone who has a degree in software engineering and majoring in Java - they will get more pay than someone who is equally as skilled with Java - but they didn't learn at university... Well thats what I have noticed in life thus far. Anyway - anyone agree??? -- You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
What you are really getting at is not so much that you charge more because you know about building accessible standards based websites but because your experience is broader. For example you can say ...and because the site is built this way it has such and such benefits to vision impaired users or such and such benefits to search engine spiders. There are numerous angles and numerous articles/tools online which can be used to demonstrate the benefits too. In the end the client should get the sense that you know what you are talking about if you demonstrate the benefits to them. Clients are looking for good advice as much as technical skills (which most often they don't follow anyway). Nick Something I think you all are missing is that you have taken time to learn about standards and accessibility. I think I can charge more for my services because I have more knowledge about standards. So for me the price may be more expensive - but they are paying for my knowledege and experience - rather than more time and work put into a job. ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
On 11/25/04 7:00 PM Jixor - Stephen I [EMAIL PROTECTED] sent this out: To be honest I don't understand how building using standards could cost more unless you simply don't know what your doing. Its really as simple as that, there is no extra work involved in using standards, if anything its less work. Building using standards is a choice not an extra. Keep studying those apostrophes though - plurals vs. possessives vs. contractions, etc.! Rick Faaberg ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] It's so frustrating. Webstandars, accesibility and Firefox as a sales argument.
I rarely even mention web standards to clients anymore unless they are govt or govt agencies. I agree that as someone paying a builder to build a house for me, I don't need to know the pros and cons of a certain type of mortar - just do the job and do it so it gets me the result I want! My pitch revolves around the client's bottom line - ROI and profit. If web standards directly increase the ROI (as in the case of govt and ecommerce) I'll push it. If it's someone selling something, I'll push the accessibility sub-set of web standards. I'll talk about the varying kinds of disabilities, ranging from people who wear - or need - glasses, to people with arthritis, to people with intellectual disadvantages, to those who don't have access to modern computers and browsers, through to those who can't see or hear at all... I find too many people equate accessibility with making sure people using screen readers can access a site whereas really it affects *far* more of the general population than a lot of us are aware. These are all clients' potential customers - why turn them away? Regarding charging - like anything, the more experienced you get the faster you get so it's a bit silly to charge across a project on the basis of time spent. I charge according to value for money and won't compete on price. (I just got a job for a redesign where the original site was done by a 16 year old kid for $300 and the client didn't see why he should have to pay what was to him big bucks and in fact firmly stated he didn't have it to spend... but my proposal evidently convinced him and I didn't even mention web standards. As someone said, it's about pushing the right buttons for a given client. Regarding charging for experience and skills - well, yes you do. That's your IP (Intellectual Property) and it's worth something! (Though of course just because you are a Java programmer it doesn't mean you can charge Java programming rates for ordinary web design work.) But I think my clients are going to see evidence of the IP and what they're paying for when I present my proposal. I'm not going to charge *extra* for my web standards knowledge as such. In my view it should be standard. :-) But my clients will pay for the overall benefit to them, whatever that might be. I do believe that most businesses care more about value for money than price. (There is *always* going to be someone to undercut you on the price alone.) We just have to give them what they want - make them want to buy, instead of trying to sell them something! If web standards are a part of that, then by all means sell them for all they're worth! If not, no biggie - just do the job the best way you know how - which is what the client will expect after your fantastic pitch. :-) Vicki. :-) On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 23:01:09 -0800, Rick Faaberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 11/25/04 7:00 PM Jixor - Stephen I [EMAIL PROTECTED] sent this out: To be honest I don't understand how building using standards could cost more unless you simply don't know what your doing. Its really as simple as that, there is no extra work involved in using standards, if anything its less work. Building using standards is a choice not an extra. ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
