More Web Design Frequently Asked Questions [Page 2]
How much does a website cost? How much does a web design cost? Or an ecommerce site?
There are three components to a site: the domain name costing less than £10 a year;
hosting, which for a typical site of between 5 and 20 pages will be about £50 a year, but upwards of £70
a year if it requires a database, which many ecommerce sites will. Neither of these costs should
vary too much from one domain/hosting company to another.
The web design cost for the site will depend on a range of factors such as the number of pages, the content and complexity of the design,
whether a contact form is required, or a banner design etc. You're paying for the web designer's time, so the more complex
the design, and the more variations that are considered, the more it will cost. For a non-ecommerce site, expect to pay
anything from £30 to £100+ a page, perhaps with a set-up fee and VAT added on as well.
Buyerzone,
a US online marketplace, took responses from its users to come up with a cost for a 4 to 6-page site of
$800 to $1500 (roughly £600 to £1000) for a customized design.
A cheaper option is to make use of templates; these are pre-designed pages where
your own text/images merely replace the original content. Template Monster,
for example, offers templates (some of which are excellent) from around $20 upwards; of course, you might end up with the same design
as perhaps thousands of other sites, and your content is fitted to the design rather than the other way around, but the cost
difference when compared to an original design from a web/graphic designer is likely to be significant.
For a customised ecommerce site selling several hundred products, with a typical range of options
such as customer accounts, web design companies are likely to quote anywhere between one and five thousand pounds.
For a more detailed breakdown of the various costs and options involved in creating an ecommerce site, please see our
Ecommerce Guide. Once again, there are various cheaper alternatives, generally based
around a fixed choice of template designs with integrated payment options - for example, see
www.123-reg.co.uk/ecommerce/
Do make sure that any quotes are comparable, as some companies charge via a recurring monthly fee, rather
than a one-off payment. In the case of a low quote the designer may be relatively
new and looking to improve their portfolio, or they might possibly be creating the site using
templates. A more expensive quote is likely to include extras, such as graphic
design - or maybe the designer is famous, or greedy, or both...
What is the legal situation with regard to Accessibility?
The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 has been implemented in stages, and
since 2006 company websites are expected to take (reasonable) steps to ensure that their sites are accessible
to disabled users. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has laid down criteria and guidelines for web designers
(relating to visibility of text, verbal description for images, ease of navigation etc)
and it's important to ensure that - at the very least - your site is checked for accessibility against the W3C Guidelines.
Publicly Available Specification 78 (PAS 78)
available from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, dated March 2006, is a 'Guide to good practice in commissioning accessible websites',
and was developed by the Disability Rights Commission in collaboration with the British Standards Institution.
PAS 78 is not a British Standard and it is not compulsory, but it would be unwise to ignore its content; for example:
- WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) are the most important accessibility guidelines for web commissioners to be aware of, as they are considered to be the de facto standard
for accessible web design (6.4.2.1)
- The website should uphold WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) guidelines and referenced W3C specifications to ensure interoperability and accessibility
to disabled people (4.2.1)
- Automated tools may be used as part of the validation process, but additional manual checks and user testing with
disabled people are essential to be confident that the website is accessible to disabled people (4.3.2)
Following on from PAS 78, the Central Office of Information guide for UK public sector bodies on
'Delivering inclusive websites'
states that 'The minimum level of accessibility
for all public sector websites is Level Double-A of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. All new websites
must conform to these guidelines from the point of publication.'
The RNIB,
amongst others, offers a detailed accessibility audit, while ComeUpSmiling provides an automated accessibility check to WCAG 2.0
as part of its Customised Website Design Reports.
What other legal requirements are there?
Companies in the UK must include certain information on their websites and in their
emails. Minimum information is: name, registered office address, telephone number*, email address, company registration number, VAT number,
membership details of any trade or professional organisation. Prices on an ecommerce website must be unambiguous, with
clear information as to whether VAT and delivery charges are included. An excellent free guide on the law governing
on-line sales in the UK is available from OUT-LAW at
http://www.out-law.com/page-424
(*see
http://www.out-law.com/page-9545)
How are updates made to a web site?
Design companies that charge a monthly fee will often include free updates as part of the design package.
Alternatively, a certain amount of free updates may be included in the initial cost. To employ a web designer to make frequent
changes to a site will be expensive, and one option is to use a Content Management System (CMS),
which is a bit like using a word processing package; for minor adjustments, such as replacing an image, a free ftp program
(e.g. Filezilla) becomes a viable alternative.
A wide range of CMS packages are available via the Internet - generally costing less than £100
- and most web designers will recommend something appropriate for your specific site and your level of computer expertise.
Any CMS will take a little time to learn how to use, but a relatively simple (and free) example is
CushyCMS.
Database sites (e.g. Ecommerce, Estate Agents) are a little different, in that a CMS component is often
included as part of the design, being tailored to the database content and the specific needs of the site.
What is web design hosting?
Hosting is where the files which make up the website are stored on a computer (server);
when someone types in a www address, they are automatically directed to this server in order to view the website.
Hosting companies ideally provide a range of back-up systems, security, plus air-conditioning for stable temperature
and humidity etc. Some Web Design companies offer hosting, but in many (the majority?) cases it is
'Reseller Hosting' in that they also use a third party's facilities, and are not hosting their websites directly.
Normally, lots of sites will be hosted on one server; however, as a site gets bigger then it may require its own server.
Dedicated hosting comes at a cost, £100+ a month or so, and larger companies often choose to have all their sites hosted
on one dedicated server.
What are templates?
The term 'template' in web design can have two very different meanings. Firstly, some Internet sites
offer ready-made designs (design templates) either free or for a small fee, typically £25 to £50; the
customer then adjusts these templates themselves by altering the text and changing the images. The structure
of the page remains fixed, although with the more sophisticated templates the colour scheme can be
altered; such templates are often the route of choice for individuals adding their personal site to the Internet.
Some budget web design companies, despite supposedly offering a 'cutomised' site, in fact only offer a choice of
layouts from a fixed range of styles. So, again this is effectively template-based design.
Secondly, all web designers use certain useful pieces of code in more than one website; if two sites both
require a three-column design, the coding framework would start the same then evolve as each design evolves.
In some senses the three-column coding that was used as the starting point for both sites is a form of 'template'.
Similarly, ecommerce sites use templates for their product pages: a unique template design is first created
for a typical product on that site, and this template is then used for every other similar product.
Of course, there might several product templates to cope with different types of product. It's
unfortunate that most people associate templates with cheap designs, as they are essential components of any
ecommerce or database site.
Why do some websites only occupy two thirds of the screen?
Different monitors have different screen resolutions; a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels used to be the norm,
but now very few monitors display at that resolution. With a higher setting of say, 1024 x 768, many sites will appear
in the centre two-thirds of the monitor, or be left-aligned, as these sites were designed to cope with the lower resolution. It's not
necessarily that these sites are 'old', it's just that the designer or client chose to ensure these sites would look
the same whatever the screen resoloution. Some websites are set to occupy a fixed percentage (often 100%) of the available width;
in which case the design is fluid, in that the structure of each page will look different, depending upon the visitor's resolution.
Various sites (e.g. BBC and Yahoo) have decided to abandon 800 x 600, and create designs based around a higher resolution.
When viewed in 800 x 600, sideways scrolling with thus be necessary.
What's this coding and meta tags all about?
A website is created using lines of code based around a software language, such as HTML
or php. To view the code, right-click while on the site and then left-click
on 'View Source' or 'View Page Source'. Unless the site has deliberately disabled
this option, then the coding will appear; at the top are usually some lines with the word 'meta'. These are the meta tags which pass on information
such as the title of the website and the site's search engine keywords.
More Web Design Frequently Asked Questions [Page 2]
ComeUpSmiling Web Design, Frequently Asked Questions
