The True Cost

Lately I have been reading Clients From Hell (funny site for anyone in design or development!) and hearing stories from fellow class mates starting to get their feet wet working for clients. It’s funny how under appreciated the amount of time and effort that goes into design and development is. Now I know there are plenty of tools out there today that help with both design and development immensely, and many are free, but I’m talking about good quality, standards complaint, efficient code, and ascetically pleasing, exceptionally laid out, usable design. These things take time.

People tend to take the internet, and the amazingly interactive content on it, for granted. In today’s age when people have all these tools to do things they think anyone can whip off a proper website for free and in 20 minutes. This is just not the case if you really want something of superb quality that is unique. Is that what everyone out there needs, no so for them ya then can go out and do it themselves (or have their kid do it as they often say they can) but don’t insult a web designer or developer with a $50 – $200 offer and waste their time.

Even worse is the person who asks “For a site like facebook” and then turns around and says that they will pay $300. So many people really don’t get a grasp the amount of work that goes into creating these sites and applications, or even that they are talking to a professional that has to make a living doing this. Even something as simple as having a map embedded into your site with custom icons marking your offices in the city on it takes time. Yes using the API is easy and straight forward but it still needs to be codded and fit in with the site, it’s not a point and click process. I think this spawns from tools that allow an end user to create personalized home pages so easily in different applications that they believe it’s that easy for the developer to create the application.

I look forward to entering this industry when I’m done, but I’m not so much looking forward to the people who may depreciate what I do. I hope that when faced with theses clients I can be civil and hopefully get them to see the truth, or at the very least know when to turn and walk away because they are just not worth my time (much like the ones at Clients From Hell).