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Web design quote form

This form may be best viewed using a desktop or laptop screen.

Our expectation is that this document will convey your vision for the new site and specific challenges with the existing one.

The following form include questions about the background of your organization and asks you to describe the purpose of the redesign, desires, functionality and specific requests relating to the proposal.

Some examples of technical requirements include:

 

E-commerce

Do you expect to sell products or charge credit cards? A non-profit may only want to accept simple (or recurring) donations but retail merchants require shopping carts, user accounts, inventory control, and shipping calculators. You’ll definitely need to encrypt the transmission via SSL, which incurs an additional annual fee, though depending on the solution, this may be included.

 

Content Management Software

Do you require something specific, such as Drupal or WordPress? Are you open to alternatives you may not be familiar with? (There are literally thousands of CMS packages.) The vendor may also have developed an in-house solution that will meet your needs well.

Programming Language

For custom web software development, is your system compatible only with a specific language, such as PHP, or Ruby, or Python? Do you have an existing infrastructure that the vendor needs to be fluent in?

 

Web Host

Does your organization have one the vendor must use? If not, can the vendor select or suggest one? Web agencies almost always have a preferred web host.

 

Browser Support

How many visitors are still on old browsers, such as Internet Explorer 8 (released March 2009)? Do they need to be supported? To make a website perform or display in a legacy browser almost always requires additional development time.

 

Integrations

Does your organization depend on 3rd party services for things like email newsletters, marketing automation, CRM / contact management, inventory control, intranet, accounting / Quickbooks, or inventory management? If so, be sure to include the ones for which synching / integration with the website is essential and describe how you expect it to work. For example, when someone subscribes to a newsletter, the contact should be added automatically to Highrise or Salesforce. If someone purchases a product and opts in, she should be added to our Mailchimp database, etc. Sometimes this functionality will be included out of the box and sometimes we’ll have to write something custom.

 

User Accounts

Do you require membership management on your site? This would be for allowing people to access special or hidden content on your site, perhaps after submitting an email address or paying to view a whitepaper. A simpler example would be password-protected pages that anyone can see with the same password and does not require a logged in account.

 

Accessibility

Do you require the website to be accessible to blind or limited-vision users? For websites whose audience skews older, larger default text and click areas will inform the design. Government & public sites often require Section 508 compliance.

 

Mobile Responsive Design

Do you require a separate mobile-optimized version of the website? Most smartphones have no trouble displaying the full site and that’s enough for many users. But a layout optimized for small screens and tablets can make a big difference in the delight and satisfaction of site visitors. This will require additional development time, which adds to the scope.

About the Budget

 Web sites are like cars: you can get good ones anywhere from $5,000 to $500,000 and, frankly, there is no price point for which you cannot find a tinkering undergraduate freelancer to put something together for you. Meanwhile, professional agencies will do professional work and the proposal will let you know the difference.

Basic Information

Project Overview

Introduce your organization and the purpose of this quote. State not only what you want us to do but also why: what is the main “pain point” your organization has? If it’s a web site redesign, what about the current one isn’t working for your purposes? This is high level, so be brief. The details will come below and a birds-eye view is fine.
You can be brief. The details will come below and a birds-eye view is fine.

Background

Describe your organization, what it does, and what you do. There’s a good chance we’ve heard of you but may not be able to figure that out by what you do visiting your existing web site (which may be why you need a new web site!).
Additionally, tell us a little about your values. What makes you unique? Why does what you do matter?

Project Goals

Please explain what you plan to accomplish or what outcome you have in mind.
Do you know of any quantitative metrics that will help, such as increased sales or more newsletter subscribers or better-qualified leads?
Target audience
Sometimes, the audience you’re intending to reach or serve with the web site is not the same as your wider market. For example, a non-profit site might need mainly to demonstrate its programs’ efficacy to donors and supporters, not necessarily serve its beneficiaries. Similarly, a startup may be more focused on attracting investors than customers and an established business may only really care about their largest 5% of clients.
Which constituencies most rely on a successful web site, in order of importance?

Proposed Sitemap

As much as the visual design impacts visitors' perception of your company is the information design: how well thought out is your major site sections and navigation schema? If you already have a good idea how you'd like to reorganize it, include that here. (If not, that's OK too -- that'll be one of the first things you'll do during the discovery phase with us.)
Moreover, not all the content from the existing site will be migrated: some of it may be outdated or irrelevant and much new copy will need to be written. What does make it over to the new site will have to be hand-entered into the content management system and be sure to let us know whether that's something your team plans to do or whether you expect us to handle it.

Scope of Work

Here’s where you want to provide more detail about the project. To the extent you can, describe all the services you know that you’ll be hiring a web team for. For example, with a web redesign project, you might be paying for:
For a task like Information Design, maybe the deliverables are a site map and wireframes. For Visual Design, it might be source files in Photoshop or Sketch format. Something like Project management doesn’t really have a deliverable but it’s a non-trivial part of the process and doing it well is a valuable part of successful projects. Aim to be explicit about what you want delivered but it’s OK if you don’t know exactly what’s involved.

Technical Requirements

This is is a broad subject but please describe what limitations or requirements you know in advance. A website is, at its core, a technical product, so these are the details that may most materially impact the schedule and deliverables.

Budget

Yes, you must include your budget, even if it’s your best guess.
If you need to specify a range (“We’d like to spend $x,000 but are willing to go to $y,000 for the right proposal”), that’s fine too.
Web sites are like cars: you can get good ones anywhere from $5,000 to $500,000 and, frankly, there is no price point for which you cannot find a tinkering undergraduate freelancer to put something together for you. Meanwhile, professional agencies will do professional work and the proposal will let you know the difference.
Finally, if you have a separate budget for assets like photographs, illustrations, software licenses, services, etc., be sure to include it. These don’t often end up being a substantial part of the overall cost but they can eat it into the final calculation. To extend the car metaphor, a mechanic has to buy the new part before installing it, which is separate from the cost to perform the service.

Project Timeline

You may not know how long something will take to do, but you do know what timeline you have to accomplish it, such as the launch of a new product or ad campaign. Maybe you have a big trade show coming up and need the site live by then? Be sure to mention any firm dates.