February 10, 2004 | View Comments (23) | Category: Our Thoughts
Summary: The cost of developing CSS for everyone.
This idea started with an email conversation between Bryan and I and then evolved a little bit inadvertently with another email conversation involving Russ and myself. With this in mind there are two major points I am going to try and hit on in this entry so bear with me. The first one involves the cost of developing CSS sites and the second one involves why we might start seeing more government sites moving over to CSS before corporations. How am I going to go about this? Who knows, maybe I will get lucky and make some sense of it all.
Not surprisingly there are still a number of large design firms (and freelancers) who develop their sites with tables. And many of them still charge a large premium for the development of these sites. If the site you are developing is to be viewed by people on different platforms with many different technologies are there any benefits to building the site in tables over CSS? Many of us already have our answers for it. CSS is the clear choice.
So let's assume these table designers charge around $65/hr for the development of this site. Seeing how CSS can offer so many more advantages would it be fair to charge even more for a CSS site, or should the table price be dropped and CSS take that price?
Say two companies are bidding for a project and both have the same experience and skill levels (all things equal) except one will build the site using tables, while the other will build the site using CSS. Who should charge more for their site or should any type control a premium over the other?
I have met many people who create CSS based sites for their clients and charge much lower prices than people who develop using tables. Something just doesn't seem right there.
I am currently working on a project where I have to extract tables and other non-semantic code from 134 templates and replace it with CSS. It sucks. it might be the most boring thing I have ever done on the web. In the end it will all be worth it, but during the process it just sucks. We want companies to move their sites over to CSS, but could you imagine changing thousands of files from tables and garbage code to CSS? Especially if none of it is contained in databases? It's an almost ridiculous task and would probably cost the company more to do than just a redesign of the site using tables. What advantages or reasons would they have to even want to make the switch? Sooner or later though they will have to. I am thinking Y2K Part II. Anybody who is willing to sift through all that garbage and fix it up will be making big bucks in the future.
First it was the independent web (mainly blogs) that rode the CSS wave. The next major wave looks to be government sites. I say this because there are accessibility laws coming into effect that agencies must begin to follow. Also the govt. is willing to spend money on fixing their websites, especially if they have to.
The CSSVault is dominated by personal sites and to be honest I don't ever expect that to change. I do however, expect to see an increase in commercial and government sites to the Vault. If Microsoft ever makes the switch then I think we have nothing to worry about, not that I am too concerned about the future of CSS.
Trackback URL: http://9rules.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/142
The next major wave looks to be government sites. I say this because there are accessibility laws coming into effect that agencies must begin to follow.
The wave has already hit, the majority of recent work is redesign, as indicated in books such as Web Redesign.
The successful lawsuit in the Sydney 2000 Olympics sure freaked out a few government departments down under, and that's what the majority of government work has been since then.
Playing the accessibility card is great argument for CSS design, Similar to how gurus can be useful tools when one of their many 'rules' aligns with our objectives.
Adam Bramwell (http://www.octapod.org/adam)
I feel your pain on the table-to-css conversion... i'm currently working on a site redesign for a government program that hasn't been touch since the early 90's it seems. Frontpage code everywhere... if this wasn't my full time job, you couldn't pay me enough :)
ray (http://www.reh3.com/)
It is harder to implement a CSS design than a table design. I find it makes sense to charge a higher rate. However, since CSS isn't as widespread, it is better business to charge a same rate for now.
Zelnox
If you can't convince the client that a CSS based web site is a higher quality product then you can't convince them to pay more for it.
Also, as a developer I find that CSS based sites take longer to get rolling but snowball much more quickly than table based sites. What I haven't determined for myself is if the entire process from beginning to end is longer or shorter (In my case I believe it is shorter)
Also I work for State Government and while I think we are a long way off from redeveloping our public site to use web standards (redeveloping the public site in any way shape or form is the issue, not the standards) most of the work that goes into our internal web tools is now done using XHTML with CSS layouts.
Jason
I would say that when you begin to make the transition from table-based design to CSS design, there is a little bit of a learning curve. You are designing in a completely different way than before. You have to approach the design differently. Instead of accomplishing structure AND presentation at the same time, you are seperating them, so it takes longer for the design to begin to take shape.
The cost should not be different, in my opinion. We charge the same rate no matter how we design the site. Although I don't think we will go back to table-based design.
The transition time for us is that we are basically having to wait for clients to come to us for a redesign, at which point we can pitch them on using CSS and XHTML (and usually win).
Jeremy Flint (http://www.jeremyflint.com)
I think that, as far as your average customer is concerned, they don't give a rats a$$ whether you use CSS or use tables as long as it looks right on their browser, and *their* customer's browsers.
The push towards CSS is not going to come from web design clients, its going to come from us - the web geeks.
This is why it would be silly to charge more OR less for CSS based design. If you charge more, people will say, "I'll settle for the cheaper one (cheap is good.)" and if you simply drop the table based design fee, people are going to say, "Ah, cheaper is good," again.
If anything, the best way to push CSS is to always just use it. Quite simply, unless your client is running
Jeff Minard (http://www.thecodepro.com/)
(used a < bracket, didn't get auto formated)
... < NS4, they'll never know the good thing you have given them because it'll just be a good looking website!
Jeff Minard (http://www.thecodepro.com/)
I've never noticed anyone charging on the basis of css or tables. They charge to do a site. they charge more if it has to talk to a database or use dynamic data. CSS vs tables is either the client's call or the developer's preference if the client has no opinion.
re your current project, Paul... try learning some basic regex. If the templates are basically the same elements used over and over, you can probably do a search-and-replace and do them all without too much effort. I do this quite a lot with dreamweaver and golive templated stuff to replace it with CF custom tags and the like. Worth a shot anyway.
Companies won't convert to CSS til they decide their sites need to be redesigned. We're planning to do it on our next redesign, but who knows when that will be? We have more important projects than wasting months on a redesign of the site... and it would definitely be worse if we were just converting the existing design to css, because there would be zero benefit to the people that use the site (oh, sure, 2 or 3 people will have an easier time with it. That's not exactly worth the 60K or so in developer time it'd cost us, and all the political hoops)
It's like a house. Yeah, steel frames are better than stick built, but you don't want to replace the wood in your house with steel, you wait til you build a new house.
JC (http://http;//www.thelionsweb.com/weblog)
I would definitely love to just grep the thing and replace all the code, but each template is unique and therefore the code is not even consistent throughout. That is where the major headaches are coming in.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
I'm not sure why there would be a discussion about how much to charge for a tables based design versus a CSS design. Much as we might hate to admit it, they each have their place right now. Clearly CSS is the way to go if at all possible, but for many of the types of sites you mention - government and educational institutions - the installed base of computers that are being used in the organizations themselves are using older computers that cannot handle more recent browsers. The best solution for them may well be a hybrid design.
Remember, standards based design is a continuum. Complete separation of structure and presentation is a worthy goal, but it is still an ideal for all but the most basic of site designs. Even our favorite example of the beauty and power of CSS, uses extra markup as hooks to enable the diversity of designs that can result. Granted these hooks are much more structural than the FONT-TABLE-spacer GIF design techniques of yore, but they are still not quite at the farthest end of the scale.
As designers it is our job to give our clients the best design solution for their unique problem. That is why they hired us. Most clients care about standards only to the point that it meets the needs of their site, if they care at all, so charging different rates based on something they don't understand is going to be a hard sell. Charge what you charge, do the best job you can, and use the right tools and techniques to deliver what you promised.
Mark Newhouse (http://gnuhaus.com/iblog/)
I charge the same flat hourly rate for everything I do. As far as CSS vs. Tables it really depends on the project. One I'm currently working on uses both.
Why? Because I got to a point where going with CSS only would have cost my client more money, taken me more time and not have added much value.
This is a very particular case. I don't have control over the whole site, or even the whole page, just a smidgen.
My general rule is to do what I think is right as long as it's practical. This usually ends up being a tableless, CSS based design.
Keith (http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/)
Obviously complete CSS redesign of existsing sites is often impractical. I have a simple comprimise. New sites should be built in CSS.
David House
Do you think your client will have to spend more in the future when it does come time to convert to CSS? I mean, do you think you are saving them money now, but down the road they are going to actually end up paying more?
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
It always depends on the situation, but for the projects I work on, I just find myself naturally drawn to CSS design. I built an HTML email for a campaign, and because I don't know much about CSS support in email clients, I elected to go with nested tables. Bloated, complicated, and inflexible! I've been doing almost exclusive CSS design for long enough that I find it's a real pain to work with tables. Designing with tables often take too much of my time. I think it has more to do with habit than anything.
But it depends... occassionally a table is a quick and dirty way to achieve an effect. Just depends on the task.
Justin (http://bluealpha.com)
I think it's best to demonstrate the advantages of CSS, rather than evangelise with clients about it.
If a client wants a redesign and you can show that if you redesign the site, it will soak up less bandwidth, customers will be able to get to your client's content quicker, and that future redesigns will be easier you may get the job. If you can show the client that your new design is accessible and therefore will increase the site audience while satisfying government regulations, you will be even more likely to win the contract.
My experience is that once you start talking about tables and CSS to the customer, either their eyes glaze over, or they will want to start going over every little design decision you make, instead of communicating to you what they actually need.
Matthew Farrand
Scrivs asked "Do you think your client will have to spend more in the future when it does come time to convert to CSS?"
In many cases I've seen the answer to be "not enough to warrant CSS now."
Like I said it depends but what I'm talking about is practical application of Web design and development technique.
As much as it sucks, there are many, many times where CSS based designs are not practical. I would agree with David that in general (there is an exception to everything when it comes to the Web) new sites (or complete redesign) are where it makes the most sense to start with CSS.
The thing is, I see lots of projects where they are just looking to enhance a site or a portion of a site, without taking on a complete redesign. Adding CSS elements to a non-CSS based site can be problematic and impractical for everyone involved.
Keith (http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/)
One way of looking at this that I didn't notice from the comments was the idea of pricing CSS and table-based designs differently, so that you may be able to control not only what kind of work you do but also how much of it you do.
Consider this: if you price out table-based coding at $75/hr for those die-hards that don't care about the benefits of CSS or those who need to stick to their "methods of yore" (yes, those clients do exist!), you could create an incentive for the client to switch by charging, let's say, $65/hr to do CSS work, bettering both the web and your type of work. Basically you make it more cost-effective for the client to go with the CSS design!
Keep in mind that you're not cutting your rates for CSS coding... you're simply inflating your typical hourly wage for doing sites the old fashioned way. Let's face it, CSS may take longer to develop in the outset, but maintaining it's done is a breeze!--meaning less time spent working on upkeep and for folks with maintenance contracts for a fixed sum per month, that can create a very profitable situation for you!
Factory Joe
I don't need to design to eat so I have the ability to be flexible with clients. For me its about selling not just my designs, but selling the whole concept of designing the right way. If I can make a client choose CSS/accessibility over tables by my price than so be it.
Ian (http://www.e-lusion.com)
Hey Scrivs, thanks for the plug :)
Something I wanted to touch on that several others have as well.
Clients don't care how the site is made, unless however, they are in the technology arena and know a little about html. They care about the bottom dollar and that THEIR clients can see their information. I agree that talking to the client about tables and css is the wrong way to go, because like it was said, their eyes will glaze over.
Instead, telling them that (from a design agencies point of view), "if we redesign this site, you will
1. Have a faster loading website
2 Be accessible to many electronic devices other then the web browser.
3. Makes updating much easier
4. Be regulated with Government Standards
5. Reach a wider audience
6. Will save you money in the long run
Now, commen sense will tell you that a Client would love to hear those things, unfortuntely, it wouldn't suprise me if some design firms "kinda' play off that anyways, even if they use tables.
To be honest, if people have the ability to design in CSS / XHTML, I don't even think tables should enter into the equation, other then a hybrid layout, because it should just become good practice. It shouldn't be a price over the other issue. If you can design a website using the compliant coding, then do it. If you are new to css, then try a hybrid layout.
Just my 2 cents
Bryan (http://www.gamecubecheats.info)
You could try something like HTML Tidy to either strip the tags or at least do something to clean up the bad code. This is what Tidy was made to do. You can find Tidy apps for most platforms from their homepage.
Of course, if you find yourself over your head, perhaps you could convince the client to let you bring on extra help.
Good luck, Scrivs!
Travis Cripps (http://www.apparentmotion.com)
The customer normally doesn't have clue about html. He doesn't care about what backend is used because he doesn't look at the code.
I have to agree with some of you. css is harder to do. Tables work on nearly any normal browser but old browsers suck on css and you'd have to worry about that.
But think about it: It may be more work to do but if you charge more the company possibly finds anybody who works with tables and makes a much lower price but that won't make the web change.
Css gives us the possibility to obtain accessibility and usability so take your chance :)
Dominik Hahn
[quote]The wave has already hit, the majority of recent work is redesign, as indicated in books such as Web Redesign.[/quote]
funny how their site uses invalid mark up and tables..
Steven
Keep track of comments to all entries with the Comments Feed
©2003-06 9rules, Inc. | Thoughts Feed | Notes Feed
Amazon Stores: Powertools | Jewelry | Books | Health | Landscaping | Kitchen | Movies
#1
I guess with CSS you have to charge less or same for now, in future you can easily charge client more in the beginning and then less for the small tweaks and redesigns (since the amount of time it takes is shorter)
As for the table2css redesign, I would advise doing it via regexp or so - extracting table structure, then searching &replacing it for css divs.
dusoft (http://www.ambience.sk)