December 07, 2004 | View Comments (51) | Category: Our Thoughts
Summary: How long would it take you to produce a high-quality (to your standards), 5-page website?
How long would it take you to produce a high-quality, 5 page site using blogging tools that would make you feel happy with the job you have done?
This question popped in my head while I was packing today (moving tomorrow, staying in Tampa though. Not that anyone cares) and I figured it would take me 7 days, but that is being optimistic since I am rarely happy with my work.
To quell any questions let's say the 5 pages are:
Also are there any shortcuts you would take?
Trackback URL: http://9rules.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/373
Damn, I knew this was gonna get complicated. When you add all that then my total probably goes up to 30 days. I don't really talk to the clients anymore so I kind of forgot all the hassles they bring :-)
In any case follow Wim's guidelines when answering. They are much better.
Scrivs (http://9rules.com/)
Up to my standards? I might never finish. I've never felt I was a good enough designer. ;-)
Up to the standards of my typical small-site clients? About two weeks to get to the version that they'll summarily reject, and about two more weeks of iterations to make it good enough that they'll cut a check.
Jay Small (http://smallinitiatives.com/)
Well there are two standards that I see.
1) Good enough for the client
2) Good enough for you and the client
And yes every instance should be #2, but in the real world that isn't always the case.
Scrivs (http://9rules.com/)
The other day, I through a standards based site together from a photoshop file in 45 minutes :), not that the design was good or anything, but someone needed it and when I was done, it looked good in IE and Firefox.
With a 5 page site, lets just assume an 8 hour workday because we aren't factoring in whether people do this on the side or whatnot, but to throw out a design, code it, check it over, I would give myself a 1 to 2 weeks to make sure the client is happy with the results.
But, if I was making a 5 page site for myself, and I was able to spend 8 hours a day on it, I would give myself 5 days.
Again, this is based on an 8 hour day.
Bryan (http://www.juicedthoughts.com)
Yep, time-wise I quote my clients about a month to 5 weeks. But I'm never satisfied with the work. In fact, there have been cases where I will finish the project and become so disgusted with it that I'll re-approach the client and say, "Look, I know you like it and I'm glad that the people who visit your site like it, but I can't stand it and it needs to be redesigned ASAP. And I'll redesign it for free, just so long as you delete your current code and never ever let it see the light of day ever again."
Then they laugh at me because they think I'm just being cute or quirky. Those sites just don't go in my portfolio.
Eris (http://www.erisfree.com)
The problem is that it heavily depends on your experience level as a designer and how inspired you happen to be. I'd say most designers I know can pump out a design or two in about 3 days (24 working hours). About 4-6 hours to put together a template and then another day to put in content. So, in total, about 5 days.
Proposal document is pretty much boilerplate at this point and I have a formula that I use for quoting work that has been pretty accurate so quoting is normally a couple hours to finalize the details.
The more experience you have, the more streamlined you get. :)
Jonathan Snook (http:///jonathan/)
I just launched a client project which consisted of exactly these specs, including gathering requirements, determining goals, design, approval, copy/content, implementation, testing and launch in just below 40 hours. All parties involved (including me) were extremely pleased with the outcome. This was completely static. The timeline would change if it required any type of CMS.
Lance E. Leonard (http://www.solarfrog.com)
I roughly agree with these, the actual design would probably be somewhere around 5-7 days but when you add in all the "stuff" with the client, multiply that time by about 4 or 5.
Also depends on whether they have the content ready or not. That's what really drives me crazy...when someone wants me to build a website for them, yet they have no idea what the content will be. Or worse, when they tell you what the content is, you build the design and everything is great - then they decide to add something else that requires a major design change, gah!
Jesse J. Anderson (http://www.echofaith.com/j)
It entirely depends on the detail of the project plan.
If I'd be (say...) sub-contracted and would get the best-in-da-world project plan, I could crank it all out in 2-3 days. Back in the real world however clients change minds and (almost) make it hard for you to get the info you want and need from them. So I'm with the month-5 weeks estimate of Eris.
PS. Sorry to go offtopic, but your preview page posts this:
"MT::App::Comments=HASH(0x8117b54) Use of uninitialized value in sprintf at lib/MT/Template/Context.pm line 1187."
All in one line, making the page go all over the place, Including having the comment box on top of network links and copyright notice.
AkaXakA (http://akaxaka.gameover.com)
Hahaha... perfect timing to ask this question. Here's a detailed answer, as this is a real-life situation: I just finished re-launching my portfolio to the masses in the span of slightly over a week since I announced on my site I'm going to make changes (click on my name to see the link).
The day after I made the announcement, I made 4 mockups in Photoshop, one each for each section I'd envisioned, got the front page coded, validated XHTML/CSS, exactly seven days later. Day after, I had almost half the site's content coded and added. The next day, after some rough-and-tumble disaster checking, I launched the site, with all the pages coded, and only three pages with "coming soon" notices (as I am under a time crunch... I wanted to have my site live and then apply for this job last evening because the deadline for it is the end of the week). There's definitely more than 5 pages in this site. It's all static pages because I didn't want to tear my hair out with technical problems of a CMS.
Mind you, I also have a day job so all of this was done during weekends and evenings.
My thoughts for quality? Not bad for a rush job. But I also know that I can do better, if I had more time I would have definitely finished ALL the pages, thought MORE about IA (added some back and forward buttons for navigation, maybe, too), and fixed all the niggling design issues before launch, but I'm FINE with it because I KNOW it's going to be good enough for the HR director that's going to be flipping through applications. But because it was a time crunch, I also limited my design choices to what I knew would be easiest to implement.
I'll probably fix all of the other outstanding problems later, but I think my portfolio does what it needs, and does it well enough for me to be satisfied.
Lea (http://www.lealea.net/)
A month per site, no point rushing it and doing a bad job with the code (unlike some people who would rather spoil the web for everyone just to get their money early).
The Wolf (http://www.pixelcarnage.com)
hmm can depend on alot, but if it were a fairly standard site around a week.
Shortcuts? A bodyID for each page works well, oh and a base.css with lots of defaults like fonts, margins etc can work wonders for quickly setting up the canvas ready to paint.
Tom
It depends -
Are we allowed to use the 9rules css file, or not?
Sorry.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
Mark - Great question ! Had me rolling over with Laughter :)
AkaXakA (http://akaxaka.gameover.com)
"A month per site, no point rushing it and doing a bad job with the code (unlike some people who would rather spoil the web for everyone just to get their money early)."
You've bloody got to be kidding me. A month to do a simple 5 page site, with no other work going on at the same time? Good luck. I'm sure that'll change once you get tired of stretching the ramen packets out to one per week.
JC (http://www.forevergeek.com)
Oh, and shortcuts? What really helps speed up design time is the fact that I have about 4 or 5 design concepts sketched out or in my head for various style sites. If a client need fits one of those styles, I have a great place to start rather than having to come up with something from scratch with each project. Couple that with spending a fair amount of time browsing sites like The Vault and Stylegala for inspiration and you've got a pretty good recipe for design success.
I'm seeing a lot of talk about clients adding gobs of time to a project. They don't really need to add all that much (I hear you, Mr. Reality). You should be able to get a pretty good feel for a client's maintenace level up front and if it feels like it'll be an unnecessary amount of strain, say "no." Otherwise, I've found that good communication, a good process (number of revisions, deliverables, etc) and open minds from both sides really make things go very smoothly.
Why is design so subjective? I feel a blog post coming on. Maybe not so controversial this time, though. :)
Lance E. Leonard (http://www.solarfrog.com)
Ok, my serious answer -
You've really left the scenario kinda open to provide a really beneficial answer..
For instance - High quality? Is that a 2-column minimalist design, or graphic layout?
5 pages? Are they providing you with all the written content, or are you filling in the blanks, or providing "writing for the web" consulting services?
Given the information you've provided, it's difficult to ascertain the scope, schedule and risk this client has.
What is the client's expectation in terms of time, cost and quality and their relative importance to one another? What are they willing to trade-off?
Answer these questions, and then you'll know whether it's appropriate to take a month, or just a few days for this 5 page site.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
They want enough graphical flair that impresses people when they first visit and helps to reflect their brand, but don't want so much that the site looks to "clunky".
They provide the content.
Did I answer like a client? :-)
Scrivs (http://9rules.com/)
In all actuality it depends on your style. I mean someone coming to me should know not to expect a graphics heavy site, but going to Shea you might expect more flair.
Scrivs (http://9rules.com/)
I did The Jack Russell site (link below) in 2 days, mostly because the client was my boss. So I got a psd comp, the content and only had to shout over the desk for feedback.
Tom (http://www.thejackrussell.com)
A week with design ready as PSD file. This includes talk and last changes of details with client.
dusoft (http://www.ambience.sk/)
It still depends...
If you're getting paid for this, is it worth your time to spend more than a couple of days on it?
What other opportunities are you losing out on by accepting this job? Alternatively, what opportunities might you gain by accepting it?
These are the factors which will determine the time frame, and honestly, only questions that you know the answer to.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
I'm not sure how long it would take, but in terms of shortcuts, I usually just create 5 PHP pages which have a header and footer includes at the least. This lets me design it once, and then make updates without having to do it for all the pages. Probably not the best way, but it works for me.
chet (http://www.chet.mancini.name)
Between 5-10 days. Always allow extra for designers block (much like writers block).
That said, I'm expected to created "cutting edge" 10-50 page websites in less than a week here at work. Of course, it never happens.
Natalie (http://nataliebuxton.com)
I am a very fast coder--to think up a good design and plan it out in my head, maybe a few days to a week or two. For the acual XHTML coding, maybe a few days to a week. If it includes PHP or complicated images(logos, ect) or javascript...well, it depends on the situation.
For a shortcut I use a standards HTML template that I came up with for one, two, and three collumn designs. This speeds things up--why reproduce the acual basic XHTML structure(Container,Header,Nav,Content,Sidebars,Footer) if nothing acually differs in it? CSS does a good enough job that nothing structurally should change.
Zach Blume (http://www.emptysnow.com)
30 hours. 10 for code, 20 for design. I know I'm dead on for coding.. design, not so sure about. I overestimated because I'm not always so happy with my design.
But then again... sometimes coding goes down if I have caffeine. Oh, and I do this for a living, so I get plenty of practice.
I don't really find anything a "shortcut." If I build it from ground up I know exactly how it works, and it saves me times in the long run.
Kyle (http://www.warpspire.com)
I think it *can* take a week if you use an existing CSS file. That could easily cut out days and weeks of browser compatibility testing. The brainstorming, content placement, graphical sprinkling is what will kill you.
Just be sure to persuade them to let you keep the FTP access so that you can sneak in and update the stuff you mess up for cramming it in one week. ;-)
Fernando Dunn II (http://www.fdiidesign.com/)
4-5 days for design... a week or two for those tweaks or even revamps, happens to me most of the time.
Well it really depends on the clients preferences that may stretch the timeline a bit.
Even when the design sucks a bit to you... but the client likes it so much... they pay the bills, so what?
Kevin Navia (http://www.pixelpush.org)
A simple 5 page site? That's essentially 2 page templates with a couple of variations... I'd look at 3 days for concept and design, 2 days to code and test (testing and fixing can be well over half the dev time) the base template and then 1/2 day to code and test each subsequent template. A couple of caveats: I'll take as long as I'm given on the design - if someone wants to give me 2 weeks then that's what I'll take; The coding time obviously varies wildly depending on the design. And that's why I hate quoting for projects! I reckon I'd be looking at about 6 days total for the project you're talking about, Scrivs.
To save time I have a site skeleton all set up and ready to go containing: a basic XHTML strict (can always move it down to trans) page with meta, style, link and script elements; js directory with a couple of common files; css directory with my most common files broken down with neutral colours and imported into a container; empty img and inc directories. This gets me off to a running start on the coding and also means that I have a consistent structure across my projects in case I have to come back to them later...
Mike Stenhouse (http://www.donotremove.co.uk)
If we're going with the "2 comps, 2 revisions, 1 final" approach, I'd give it about 7 business days on a 5-page site for the designing and coding. Obviously this doesn't include any up-front meetings, project management, discovery, waiting for the client to get everything you need, etc. that happens when you deal with a company all on your own. For that I'd have to multiply the time by about 3. So somewhere around a month is good.
Vinnie Garcia (http://ibebloggin.com/)
Providing that the client knows what they want with the site and that they're quick to respond to correspondence, I'd say probably around two weeks. In my experience, it's almost always the client that slows everything down by waffling over what they want to have on the site or by taking forever to get the materials together.
Sara White (http://blog.splashdesigngroup.com/)
I will preface this by saying that it's 4:10 scrivs time and I haven't yet read all the comments, however that shouldn't matter.
Currently I'm working on a new site for my company. If I were adamant about finishing it and I didn't have another job, or if I had a few days off, I'd say three days max. Of course I dont' sleep very much as evidenced by the time. I have been getting more sleep lately so let's say 5 days if I take it easy. If I'm really into the design I'll be up until it's light outside. Two to three days of that and I'm finished. I'll usually put about 18 hours a day into something I'm trying to finish.
Maybe that's not normal, but hey it gets the job done. To break down the time let's put it like this. I already wrote my own blog software. If this is for a client I still need to code my CMS. That'll probably take about 20 hours. For five pages that are mostly static, this won't be needed. So I already have the blog software (probably spent about 10 hours on coding it without revamps to the code) so I don't need to spend time on that (sorry, I don't like to use 3rd party CMSs). The design may take anywhere from 3 hours on up. Usually I make a quick design and either a. make the entire thing in photoshop or b. figure out what the elements are going to be and make them. I always end up designing on the fly — that is, I always code the page and figure out updates to the imagery as I go along so most of the design phase is incorporated into the xhtml/css coding phase. At the end of about 5-6 hours I can usually have a pretty clean mockup (it took me about 10 hours of work to get my current version of incubus attacks working correctly and that was because of a "bug" that I had forgotten about and spent about 3 hours hitting my head on my table NEXT to the powerbook). I'll spend another few hours either fleshing out the design or cleaning it up. Then I'll populate the pages, recheck my layout with the CSS. Modify the way the text looks if needed, and check out how the content areas look to see if I'm still content with it. I could probably shorten that by just using some lorem ipsum, but I don't usually bother with that for some reason (laziness of copying and pasting). I'll then take it all into IE to fix it up so that the ignorant 90% of the internet that doesn't use a good browser can still see my work as intended — that usually takes an hour at most depending on the complexity of the CSS and how things are positioned. The whole process takes about 20+ hours for me. Of course in my long working hours I probably end up missing/giving up on a lot of things that I have to fix once I'm refreshed. I probably also bend time to my will and in reality probably take about 30 hours. Of course if I'm not that into it or some other project of mine comes up I could take weeks :)
I'm half done with my hexfuse redesign (which I've babied so it's taken like 15 hours already) and I decided to finally write a book and finish it. That's taken precedence, but as soon as I don't finish that book I'll be back on my original project after I digress through another ten or so.
I apologize if you read my long and drawn out stream-of-consciousness but it's 4:26 and I'm really needing some sleep now. Suffice it to say that if need be, I can have a professional job done in about 2 days — if need be.
Joe Clay (http://www.gra-phix.com/)
There's hope for me, I saw your post and thought "hmmm I'd need a week" and was then pleasantly suprised to see other say the same.
Matthew (http://madtv.me.uk/)
I recently did the similar thing, simple site (withtout the contact) 1 day. Two days at most.
Aleksandar (http://www.aplus.co.yu/)
3 days, 2 hours, 37 minutes and 52 seconds (not including toilet breaks).
No, seriously I'd say a week if it's for a client (strictly code and design only).
Four months if it's my own site.
John Serris (http://phonophunk.phreakin.com/)
Joe -
Wow. That had to be the most highly caffinated post I've ever read.
Sleep is not necessarily a bad thing, dude.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
Mark, I hadn't had any soft drinks within hours of that post, however over my lifetime I've had enough that caffeine is a non-issue. I know people who will drink a coke and be up for hours, on the other hand I'll sometimes have one before bed. Caffeine has actually come to calm me down.
I only stay up when I'm working on something. Lately I've had nothing to really work on so I've been going to sleep early and getting up early. And of course sleep isn't a bad thing, when possible I'll soak up like 11 hours of it. I'm a college student with bags still under my eyes from last semester, though I'm starting to get rid of them :)
Joe Clay (http://www.gra-phix.com/)
Don't forget all the time required to read and post to weblogs. Oh, and RSS feeds, don't forget those. Keeping up with what's new; that's billable time, right?
Markus (http://www.outhink.com)
No it isn't billable, you just increase your hourly wage with your experience level.
AkaXakA (http://akaxaka.gameover.com)
Jesus, 30 days?
I think if I was totally fair I should probably only charge for 10-20 hours for most of that kind of sites I do.
If hard pressed, I'd probably do it in a day too.
This would of course mean that I had some sort of idea about the general look - but I usually get those when I shower, so not sure if that counts :)
Generally, when you look at, coding and design isnt very time-consuming. Once your mind is set to use the tools, simple markup and css, id say it goes fairly fast. And with experience probably comes less time to think about certain problems - if you've done 10 blog sites before, you've probably honed in on a good format for the archives, for example.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that if you spend more than 5 hours "coding" something likes, you need to be more effective.
Brian Andersen (http://www.brian-andersen.dk)
Brian, the 30 days is not all billable time. It's probably an estimate of time between agreement to do the website and delivery to the client. Most of us can do a 5-page site in a matter of hours if everything is given to us from the get-go, but how often does that happen in real life? Odds are you have other projects going on in addition to this 5-page site, the client will forget to give you something or drag their feet, you might hit snags with the web host, etc. There are a lot of things to factor in here.
Vinnie Garcia (http://ibebloggin.com/)
No what is the funniest thing about CMS's? You can always find little bugs that need to be fixed. This mroning I had to write almost a page of code to fix a tabbing problem. Probably could have been fixed with a few lines of code if I really knew my Preg_Replace function.
Zach Blume (http://www.emptysnow.com)
Any 5-page project would take the majority of us three hours at the keyboard, like Vinnie said. However, even if everything was given to us at the get go, you are still dealing with the customer.
I just read a good article the other day about a lot of the problems encountered. But as true as everything in here is, you still not say that it will always work out like so.
Clients are clients, they will always want the most they can possibly drain out of you. They will make changes all the way through the design and development process. And why do most of us do this? Because we are kind, or we want them to be truly happy with what they get? Maybe a little, but the real reason is, and there is no nice way to say it; we want to shut them the fuck up.
To me, for a 5 page site I would say 3 weeks. About 15 days of that is trying to get the person truly wants and needs, 3 days of desiring it. And the remaining 3 days making sure that everything is done the way they want it, and no longer have anything to bitch about.
Ryan Latham (http://www.unmatchedstyle.com)
I would like to hear how much it would be for a project done in a week and how much for month long development. would it differ three times. I think the answer is NO!
Linas (http://www.ziedas.com)
For the people that can do it in a matter of hours or days... does that include time spent creating custom graphics or redoing their logo (that had to be scanned in because the orginal logo designer took all the source files) or finding stock photos or icons (or creating them as needed and related mishaps?
Or is that more of a situation where they know exactly what they want, you have a design in mind and all materials and content you need and it's just a matter of putting it all together with no other projects going on at the same time?
Sunshine
Or is that more of a situation where they know exactly what they want, you have a design in mind and all materials and content you need and it's just a matter of putting it all together with no other projects going on at the same time?Sunshine
Vinnie Garcia (http://ibebloggin.com/)
I'm surprised nobody stated this response:
"That depends on what the client's budget is."
Personal site: start at 10:00 pm, design, watch some tv, code, launch, fix bugs, fix more bugs, have breakfast at 8:00 am.
Michael Kraabel (http://www.cubeslave.com)
At our Company we try and work everything into a three day period.
The design happens the first day. The development the second day. And the third and final day we plug in the content.
This is all based on 8 hour work days.
We implement our own Content Management System, and use an HTML template that I put together myself and replace the stylesheet for every new website.
Here's some examples from some of our Athlete Sites:
Akin's News -> From the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Tank's Home -> From the Tennessee Titans
Onterrio's Gallery -> From the Minnesota Vikings
The HTML templates get slightly modified for each site, but they roughly keep the same structure :)
I must say though, it took about 2 months (5 day work week - 8 hour days) for two developers to build the CMS. That initially costed the company the most money. But hey, you got to invest before you reap.
Dustin Diaz (http://dustin.polvero.com)
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#1
Coding and designing would take me about 5 days.
But adding: talking the site through with the client, making the project plan. Making proposals, working with the feedback and user testing. 4 weeks would be more realistic.
Wim (http://pixelpret.nl)