Web Design and Development

Did you ever wonder why web development typically costs so much?  Why most will recommend that you get a fixed price quote and avoid hiring someone who charges by the hour?  The reason is that most do not know what they want until after they see what they don't want, causing the site to need to be rebuilt over and over again, until it reaches something they can accept.  Often, it still falls short of what they would really like.

Welcome to a new approach!  With experience and a certification in coaching, I help to guide you through the site definition process:

1. Identify the target group accessing the site, and determine web site purpose and mission
2. List all the types of content and group into pages.  Determine menu content and number of menus.
3. Design master layout to be used for all pages.  Create a sample page, review and update, until accepted.

Only after these steps are complete, and the design is acceptable to you, is the remainder of the site built. 

This approach has proven effective in reducing overall costs.  By charging by the hour, you pay for only the time actually spent in working on your site.  Typical charges for a 5 page site range from $150 to $500, with the later experiencing the majority of time in the coaching phase to determine the site purpose and content.  This is far less than the often quoted price of $2,000 - $5,000 or more.

Coaching Your Web Design

• Do you think you need a web site but are unsure why?
• Do you have a relative who has offered to build a site for you?
• Have you already started building a site with one of the do-it-yourself tools and not sure what to include?

The biggest challenge for web site development is determining what to include and to design a functioning layout given the content and purpose.  My coaching services are the solution.  With extensive experience in working with web sites of many purposes and human factors experience in designing layouts that are effective and easy to use, I can quickly and easily guide you in defining a web site greater than you ever imagined.  I will identify when an idea can be a pitfall and suggest alternatives.  You are then free to take the design to any developer you choose, to do it yourself, or you, optionally, can hire me to do the construction -- the choice is yours.

Maintain the Site Yourself via a User Interface

Joomla! is an award-winning Content Management System (CMS) that will help you build websites and other powerful online applications.  Best of all, Joomla! is an open source solution that is freely available to everybody, released under the general public license (GPL).  Learn more here...