Greetings!

I just want to ask how long does it take you to design a website? I mean, how many number of hours do you usually spend designing a website?

Your minimum working hours for the simplest one and your maximum for the most complex design.

You might be wondering why I ask this question? It's just that I'd like to perform a survey to see if I'm working fast enough or slow in designing websites. And BTW, I hope you guys would specify your answers like the example below:

Graphic Design [for a Web project]
Minimum hours spent: (let's say...) 5hrs.
Maximum hours spent: 10hrs

(X)HTML with CSS:
Minimum hours spent: 2hrs
Maximum hours spent: 3hrs (this might be a tableless HTML)


Also for the Web Programming like PHP Coding or the like...

PHP Coding:
Minimum hours spent: 5-10hrs (might be php templating, huh?)
Maximum hours spent: 15-20hrs (some kinda shopping cart)

Lastly, hope you might also want to state an example of what sort of web project you made.

Note: This is just my example but I do hope to get answers from you here.

Looking forward on your replies.



.alienx

my, I couldn't answer this if I wanted to. there is no time minimum/max for me. I take my time and get it done. Somtimes takes days-weeks (in phirebrush's case, months) or a few hours, depends on the project.

I agree with kriegs, every site is completly different. A simple site might take two or three hours (www.rawcommunities.com/crude-food/) and a complex site (www.madmouseart.com) - this took about 3 months (usually less than a day a week) to get the main site running and it still is not finished. I never just work on one thing at a time, even the simple site taking 3 hours would include stopping to read my email or to have a quick snack. I think I've got a short attention span (well especially when it comes to computers).

Rob

These are good questions AlienX, but I really think you're going to discover that nobody can pinpoint it exactly the way you'd probably like. As Kriegs eluded, it depends on the type of project, and my range for design and development has gone literally anywhere from 8 hours to 8 months. More exact averages would have to be contingent upon a breakdown of specifics, i.e. - How many pages, is there server-side scripting, is there database development, etc. Best of luck with your survey! :)

Well, it totally varies. When I set out on something new, it takes a lot longer than something I've done before. www.myhealthmybody.com took between 3 and 4 months, whereas another similar site for the same client (www.voguebeauty.net) took about a week of actual work on my part.

my, I couldn't answer this if I wanted to. there is no time minimum/max for me. I take my time and get it done. Somtimes takes days-weeks (in phirebrush's case, months) or a few hours, depends on the project.


couldnt have said it better myself.

Thats why i dont get why web design site who offer their services have set prices, because the either over charge the customer or cut themselves short.

Well, I'm a web developer mostly (PHP & MySQL mostly and some XHTML + CSS)

The time taken to build CMS's, shopping carts really vary, so does creating an XHTML(valid) + CSS layout depending on how complex it is.

But I usually take a maximum or around....5 hours to code the PHP for a site because I have some classes written so I just reuse them so that isn't much work....but the rest really varies depending on the request.

Glad to hear/read your answers and opinions and I agree on it! And thanks for the URLs it gave me an idea on an estimate time you've spent for it! Well, I guess I would have to ask another yet related question.

What about Freelance Projects? I'm pretty sure a lot here goes into freelance. Since I do not have any experience on how freelance projects come about (like how does it happen between the client and you)?

I like to take freelance projects on my freetime but I don't know how to talk to clients. Like most of you here, you base your fee on a per hour basis, right? How is that? (I hope I'm making sense here and also hoping that you understand what I mean).

How do you say to your clients that "I could work on that project for 20hrs and my fee is $/hr." Is that how you make a deal with them? If so, how do you usually generate a time frame for a certain project based on no. of hours worked? Do you say "I'll be working on that 4hrs a day so that'll be done in 5days?"

What if they'd request for changes that will affect your given timeframe? How do you handle that? hope you could site a scenario. ;)

I really don't have an ample idea on how freelance projects can be dealt. I hope I'll find answers here. Thanks in advance for such replies. God bless!



.alienx

I almost always quote a fixed price for any work. (Most clients will want a fixed price, it will be rare that a client will want to risk paying per hour they have set budgets and all that). The price I quote is generally a slight over-estimation so that I don't loose out if it takes me a bit longer and I don't have to increase the charges for minor changes.

If the client decides they want something changing, it will depend on how big the change is whether I will charge them more. If it's just some minor stuff then I won't charge them anymore, which is the usual case.

I will also usually do some minor updates for the first month or so, like simply changing a bit of text here and there.

I don't generally specify the costs as a price per hour, unless they specifiically ask. The time I quote will be based on what other work I have on and how long I plan to spend per day on the project. But again, I don't tell the client the details, just something like "It will cost £150 and I can have it finished by Friday 25th Feb as long as you supply the text/images/whatever on time"

Hope this helps

Rob

Freelancing is all that I do. I don't have time for a real job because of college and stuff.
Clients prefer fixed prices, so that's what I give them.

This is how it happens for me:
Client gets in touch with me either directly or via a middle man.
They give me a very rough idea of what they want including the time constraints in a few minutes.
If I can do it and it's feasible, I get into the specifics (they usually ask me what the price is at this point, if not, I bring it up).
I write up a little specification (i.e. a detailed document of the features they requested) and email it to them and tell them that if they are ok with it, to reply to that same email stating that they agree to those features.
This is when I start the planning and programming.

For anything extra (i.e. anything other than what is mentioned in the specification), I charge a decent fee. If it's a good client who I've worked with before, I usually don't charge anything at all unless it takes up a lot of my time.

I usually try and get advances before I start on a project. I give higher priority to those who pay in advance.

I'd have to agree with what has been said, It most certainly does take alot longer to do something for the first time, as now I am re-designing my website and using alot of CSS, somthing I've never gotten into alot and It has taken me weeks to try to sort out the way Internet Explorer handles this stuff. Right now I would rate browser compatability as the hardest part of CSS and maybee even web design (for me that is).

With designing a website you never can tell how long it will take, but you can get a general idea. Just base it off your expierance and what you know you can get done. Know that its always a good idea to add a 'padding' in you quote. Like stated before quote the price a little higher to accomodate for changes, I would take this a step further and include an extra day(s) in the estimated schedule to accomodate all the surprises life throws at us.

Best of luck and thank you for all the helpful replies as this thread has been informative to me.