Lost confidence in website designer....

[missdetermination]

Hi I was hoping for some advice? I have a website designer who designed one of my sites, we came to refresh one of our others and although we had reservations we went ahead and gave him the work to do on the other site.

This should have been completed beginning of Feb, he delayed and delayed and despite us asking for updates we pretty much just signed off a jpg image of the homepage and saw nothing for two months. A week ago he gave us a version for Beta testing. There were virtually no products on the website, the back end admin had none of the reporting we had previously asked for and nothing worked....he tried to convince us it was all fine and ready to go? After giving him two pages of basic what was wrong and advising bespoke items we had also paid for had not been provided, he has taken another week of amendments and gave us another version this week. (Cant check that as its on another computer and cant email the links here as the emails aren't working)....I have called and asked them for help and they said there was a problem with a server earlier but not now so cant tell me whats wrong and can I email them the error message??

I feel as though I am being fobbed off and have no support. When I ask for help with problems they just make out its me and not a problem with the website/their side...although they admit in the end it is....kind of!

So where do I stand? I have paid £2000 for a jpeg so far and they want the other £2k when going live. I just have no inclination to go any further with this project especially when we are already having problems with our emails :-( My current website is with them and i'm now worried they will get arsssy and take it off line, its an eCommerce site with there own bespoke admin (which they have just completely changed again with no warning nor help with how things work on it....they just want us to work out how to use it ourselves).

Am I expecting too much?

 

[ITsoldUK]

Was the scope and milestone dates formulated prior to commencing the project and agreed by both parties?

 

[missdetermination]

Yep.

When he gave us the jpeg two weeks into the project we were given limited time to sign it off, we didn't like the design (we said we liked a certain website, so they just copied the banner from the website into ours with our colours)....nothing original, just looked rushed and hashed together it was baaddd! We took time to go into even more detail of what we wanted re the design...no imagination or effort was put into it I promise you.

He told us to sign off quickly and ensure the payment was there to prevent any hold ups, we did this the day he mentioned it. We did everything they asked when they asked for it.

 

[NordEco]

First of all... they can not take down or amend the other website without knowledge of the owners as Im assuming you are up to date with any payments owed? If it is taken down the courts will fine them heavily and compensate you for loss of earnings... bespoke admin on the other hand is different, but I would be checking your contract as to why they didnt inform you of changes or update user guides.

Your new website: You need to review the current payments and workload deadlines, if they have to deliver X after you paid A, then they can not expect payment B if X is still outstanding.

I would no be looking at a new contract that enforces penalty charges dependant on the quality and keeping to deadlines... more than 12 errors in testing (that should be picked up) then 10% deduction in final pay... miss deadline by more than XX days, 10% deduction in final pay.

Get all the details of the contract and place the bullet points of the different phases and what they have to do to complete those phases (do you do sign offs?) on here, I can give you a rough idea on aspects of their contract... I have done PM work in the past and have many high profile trading systems under my belt that I designed and estimated, etc. So know the paperwork and process that needs to go into a system, plus Im building my new website and its not rocket science.

 

[missdetermination]

Thanks, yes all payments are up to date and in front if anything. We were told we would get changes to admin (in passing nothing definite), not when nor did we expect a complete overall, NOTHING is the same....and user guides??? ha ha they would be useful! As would some help from them

 

[NordEco]

I would be ringing them up and explaining its not acceptable to simple change the backend admin system without:

a) Telling yourselves with some official notice.
b) User acceptance testing it with yourselves in case a 'fix' has broken the system.
c) Free training and or user guides, as this is your bread and butter money making system that they are altering and leaving you to work it out, what are they going to do if there are problems with aspects of the changes?
d) Is it truly unique for you personally? If so why are they changing it at all, if it aint broke then dont fix.
e) sign offs that you are happy with the new system.

As mentioned when I personally authorised changes to aspects of the system, I would let everyone know, run training courses, offer full backward compatibility, explain why we are doing something and make sure they are happy. Not just change an important aspect of your companies every day life and say "SURPRISE"...

 

[Faevilangel]

Going on from Nordeco's post...

You need to talk to them and do the following:

1 - List issues that are on the site, so they have a written copy (via email) of all the edits they need to do.
2 - Give them a timeframe to complete the tasks
3 - Come up with a payment plan for the remaining funds due e.g. on completion, after x task done etc

By law you need to give them time to rectify the issues and to get the website live, if they don't do it in this time then look at another route e.g. paying someone else to complete the job.

 

[Successukdotcom]

First of all... they can not take down or amend the other website without knowledge of the owners as Im assuming you are up to date with any payments owed? If it is taken down the courts will fine them heavily and compensate you for loss of earnings... bespoke admin on the other hand is different, but I would be checking your contract as to why they didnt inform you of changes or update user guides.

Your new website: You need to review the current payments and workload deadlines, if they have to deliver X after you paid A, then they can not expect payment B if X is still outstanding.

I would no be looking at a new contract that enforces penalty charges dependant on the quality and keeping to deadlines... more than 12 errors in testing (that should be picked up) then 10% deduction in final pay... miss deadline by more than XX days, 10% deduction in final pay.

Get all the details of the contract and place the bullet points of the different phases and what they have to do to complete those phases (do you do sign offs?) on here, I can give you a rough idea on aspects of their contract... I have done PM work in the past and have many high profile trading systems under my belt that I designed and estimated, etc. So know the paperwork and process that needs to go into a system, plus Im building my new website and its not rocket science.

In my 20 years as a website developer in principle he is correct re the working website, but in my experience many do shut things off out of malice. If you dont want a court battle, move it before you shout -
It sounds like a database driven site so you will need a website developer to take it on with the correct technology. There are loads of us so pm some for a quote.

 

[E21MEDIA]

Hi I was hoping for some advice? I have a website designer who designed one of my sites, we came to refresh one of our others and although we had reservations we went ahead and gave him the work to do on the other site.

This should have been completed beginning of Feb, he delayed and delayed and despite us asking for updates we pretty much just signed off a jpg image of the homepage and saw nothing for two months. A week ago he gave us a version for Beta testing. There were virtually no products on the website, the back end admin had none of the reporting we had previously asked for and nothing worked....he tried to convince us it was all fine and ready to go? After giving him two pages of basic what was wrong and advising bespoke items we had also paid for had not been provided, he has taken another week of amendments and gave us another version this week. (Cant check that as its on another computer and cant email the links here as the emails aren't working)....I have called and asked them for help and they said there was a problem with a server earlier but not now so cant tell me whats wrong and can I email them the error message??

I feel as though I am being fobbed off and have no support. When I ask for help with problems they just make out its me and not a problem with the website/their side...although they admit in the end it is....kind of!

So where do I stand? I have paid £2000 for a jpeg so far and they want the other £2k when going live. I just have no inclination to go any further with this project especially when we are already having problems with our emails :-( My current website is with them and i'm now worried they will get arsssy and take it off line, its an eCommerce site with there own bespoke admin (which they have just completely changed again with no warning nor help with how things work on it....they just want us to work out how to use it ourselves).

Am I expecting too much?

Sorry to hear about your issues. Not that it's any consolation, but in my experience this appears to be common practice with web "designers". You may be unfortunate and get a scammer who may hold you to ransom, but often it is an issue of motivation, boredom and priorities for the designer. They may come up against a technical stumbling block which is beyond their ability and feel they should be compensated for the additional effort in learning a new area, or don't have the business acumen to sub-contract a specific area of work. So resentment builds up against your project, especially when a straight forward and higher paying project rolls in.

I agree with a lot of the advice already given. Nordeco, successukdotcom.

By the way, I'm curious to know how you came across the designer? Were they recommended, did you see genuine portfolio work prior to hiring, or were they simply the cheapest of a bid tender?