Ask YC: webapp's frontend spruce up

[mig]

Hi,

We are a self-funded startup working on a webapp. We would really appreciate any comments/suggestions/feedback/pointers regarding the following.

Some of the people that we have showed our app to have suggested that we spruce up the frontend before actively marketing our app. What is the best way to do that if we are not web designers?

If we were to get web designer on contract, how much would it cost approximately? What would be the best place to look for one? What should be the expected deliverables from a designer(jpegs/sample html/flash files)?

What are the legal issues that we need to be aware of?

Thanks a lot for reading this,

Manu.

[lanej0]

Most competent web designers should be able to provide any level of deliverables. If all you need is Photoshop because you can handle the HTML/CSS in house, ask for that. Should save you some money.

On the other hand my experience is that if they can't provide you with the HTML/CSS, skip them. It takes some understanding of markup in order to design a good web site. I've worked with too many designers that do mainly print work who decide to try out their skills on the web. Usually leads to a poor result.

[NoBSWebDesign]

If you need a web designer, I would start with any designer you might have a personal connection with (even if it's a friend of a friend). Those are usually the situations that work out best in my experience. Otherwise, try putting up a Craigslist post for a designer in your area or Google for a designer in your area.

As for cost, it really depends on what the state of your current app is (i.e. what does it look like now, how complex is it, how unique do you want the design, and how compliant do you want the site (flash/no flash,png's with transparency or just jpegs...)). Personally, I'd try to steer clear of anyone who quotes you a price without really examining the site first.

However, so as not to just brush off the price question, I'd charge anywhere from a couple hundred for a crazy easy redesign to a thousand for a more conceptual and custom design.

Deliverables: You'd want to get the CSS file obviously, any additional IE style hacks that may be contained outside the main CSS file, and all associated images. And the flash stuff if there are any embedded flash files (I'm assuming that for a webapp, you're not referring to a full flash site, because that would be ludicrous and highly unusable).

Legal: Make sure that you have a fully "Contractor" arrangement in place and that there are no ambiguities that could cause the person to be confused for an employee, because the IRS doesn't like that much. Also, try to get full ownership of the artwork if possible, so that you can reuse images on print stuff later if you want to. I always give my designs to the client to do with as they please, but it's not unheard of for them to retain ownership. Either way, it should be outlined in the design contract.

Wow, that was long, but hopefully it answered your questions.

[aquateen → NoBSWebDesign]

This is unrelated, but why does your comment have a lighter font (#323232) than the others?

[mig → NoBSWebDesign]

Thanks for the response. Are there any sample "Contractor" legal documents that one can download from scribd , docstoc or anywhere else?

[NoBSWebDesign → mig]

I have no idea why my font is a lighter color on your computer. It looks fine on mine.

I'm not sure if there are any up on Docstoc, that site wasn't around when I wrote mine. I did a lot of research in making mine, typically the designer is the one who writes it, and then you look over it and tell them what parts you'd like to add, remove, or change. I can put mine up online for you to see/use once I get back to my main computer. I'll let you guys know.

[brianr]

On the topic of deliverables--if you're adept at HTML and CSS, you can probably save money by asking the designer to just send you the Photoshop (.psd) or Illustrator (.ai) file, and maybe image slices if they can do it quickly. I've done it this way quite a bit and it's worked well.

[wumi]

i asked 'Where to find designers" this was the response, hope it helps

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=91204

[midnightmonster]

I'm wary of attempts to "spruce up" web apps after the fact. Like skinning desktop apps, often the best you can do is put a pretty picture on a lousy user experience, and generally you don't even get that far. (I was going to go for some metaphor about women and makeup, but I just couldn't make it work: I like my wife best without makeup, but I prefer web pages/apps with tasteful styling.)

Except... I just did this very thing. Or rather, I was the designer. I made a beautiful, humane interface for a web app built by someone who (by his own admission) couldn't design his way out of a paper bag. A rush job, too. Somewhere in the middle when my design looked like blue-gray iphone-rejected ass I kicked myself for taking the job on in the first place, but the next day I pulled out of the blue-gray ass phase and ended up building something I'm really proud of and that the client and everyone who sees it loves. And it was on time and on budget, too (within $50 of the dead middle of my estimate range, in fact).

I'm not sure what the keys to success were in this case. I expect it helped that I was very familiar with the app and its goals, and I think it helped that I'm not (just) a "Designer". I've worked on web apps in almost every technical or creative role, and often I build the whole thing myself from HTTP to pixels.

I don't read news.yc looking for gigs, and frankly I didn't see myself doing jobs like the one I just did--something about not wanting to be labeled a Designer. But if you want to contact me you can use my screen name @ gmail.com.

To answer some of your specific questions:

Legal - Contractor vs. employee & ownership of IP. The first is not hard. Call them a contractor and not an employee (important but not sufficient by itself) and tell them what you need, but don't try to control when or where they do the work (you can have a deadline, but not scheduled hours). The second is not hard either, just make sure you nail it down. The contract I use assigns copyright of completed (and paid-for) Works to the Company but reserves to the Service Provider "(i) know-how, techniques or general expertise used and/or developed by Service Provider in the course of providing Services hereunder; (ii) pre-existing materials or intellectual property; (iii) all generally known or published information; or (iv) other software and related ideas, designs and materials which Service Provider has developed or is developing for itself and for third parties" while granting to Company a limited license for any of the above insofar as it's incorporated into the Works.

Deliverables - You should receive working HTML files with all the accompanying CSS, JavaScript and images, but also the PSDs or whatever that went into making them. @brianr, "slices" are for tables and CSS designs that wish they were tables. No one can provide you with the images pre cut correctly without knowing exactly how the page will be built, which no one can know until it's built, because if there's anything technically interesting at all about the CSS, the first implementation is likely to have some issue in some browser.

A PSD is not enough because a webpage is not (unlike a magazine page) a static image. It's especially ludicrous to consider a PSD much more than a concept when you're talking about a web app (i.e., a collection of web pages where many pieces are not only dynamic but functional).

Price - second NoBSWebDesign that this is really impossible to even ballpark without knowing a lot more about your app and what you need. Personally I don't take jobs for a few hundred for people I don't already have a relationship with--too much overhead. OTOH, I recently had a subcontractor do a really nice design concept for me for a simple professional site for less than $200. But that was only to the PSD stage (a concept that still needed to be brought to life in code and web graphics) and with a lot of guidance from me. And it was just a small professional website, not an app.

[NoBSWebDesign → midnightmonster]

Well put. To summarize:

1.Make sure they are Contracted (and look up the IRS's definition of a Contractor).

2. Get the PSD, CSS, images, and javascript if applicable. Also, get at least a couple HTML's all styled up so you can put it into your dynamic template more easily.

3. They'll need a lot of access to the app to figure out how it's assembled and constructed and they'll need to study every element that's present in the whole app so they know how to style it. I'm a designer/developer, so I'm not extremely familiar with the whole process of getting someone who is ONLY a designer. Also, the estimate is just that, an estimate. Don't trust anyone who says otherwise.