Web Design Contract

Zowbie, I highly recommend that you avoid using a stock contract that you've obtained somewhere. Such contracts may have built-in weaknesses of which you are unaware that can cause you no end of grief. I should know, after spending 3 years in litigation as a result of using the well-respected Graphic Artists Guild contract (GAG.org). DON'T USE THAT CONTRACT!

I now use a contract written for me by Ivan Hoffman (IvanHoffman.com). Ivan was Lynda Weinman's (Lynda.com)'s attorney and has been doing Web design contracts for many years, so you don't have to waste a lot of billable hours training him. Because I had very specialized needs, my contract required many revisions of his standard contract and was fairly expensive. It has some very specific language in it dealing with approvals, changes in client direction, and refunds for cancelled projects.

Occasionally I lose a prospective client because the prospect can't deal with my contract, but I would rather lose a sale than spend another 3 years in litigation.

Even without a contract, you may be able to avoid these situations by responding, "because my designers have already done the work required based on your approval of XXX, the changes you have requested will require an additional X hours of work at $X." I have found that clients quickly decide that changes are unnecessary when they find out that the changes will cost them money. Be sure to either require payment prior to making additional changes or at least get a written work order authorizing your company to make the required billable changes.

You can also avoid these situations by using an approval form that specifies that implementing changes made after this will require additional fees beyond your original contract fee.

I've listed a couple of templates below that I acquired a while back. The excel file (3rd file) is used for inputting your company and client information and can be used as a mail merge with the documents. It's fairly self-explanatory. Any questions, just let me know and I'll try to clarify further:

Website Marketing Proposal and Analysis (.doc)
Website Proposal for New Site Design (.doc)
Data-File (.xls)

Enjoy!

R.E. Ferguson

PPCROIBlog.com
Advanced PPC Strategies, Bid Management & Web Analytics

Ha,

Zowbie, that's the $64 million question, and this issue is the bane of just about everyone who provides online services.

There's no short or easy answer to it.

Regardless of how well you specify things in your func specs and tech specs, most clients won't really understand what they're getting until they actually see it and play with it.

And then they will want to change things. And if you don't let them, or say it will cost more, they will feel like you conned them, didn't deliver what they wanted and aren't very good at your job. Not good if you want an ongoing relationship with them, or want them to recommend you to other clients.

So it won't matter how you draw up your contract, someone will get upset.

As I said no easy answers but their are some things you can do.

Future Now recommends using wireframing and prototyping before anyone starts coding and designing. The idea being that everyone knows, can see and signs off on exactly what is going to be built. Head on over to their site, there's plenty of free articles on how to do this. |Or buy their book, Waiting For Your Cat to Bark.

A List Apart also has a whole range of articles on how to avoid grief in design contracts, so check them out too.

Zowbie, Silk Merchant made some great comments.

I would also like to suggest in your contract that you specify a certain number of revisions at various stages of your project so its clear there is room for 'some' revisions and changes, but it also sends the message that anything outside this scope will be charged to the client. I think this would soften the potential situation where the client feels conned as Silk Merchant put it.

This has worked for me as a client on previous projects. Our contracted agency also spent a lot of time on wireframes. They walked us through them as well as some accompanying design concepts. In our case design templates for our website redesign were delivered in bundles meaning that feedback on the early bundles was able to flow through to the latter ones which reduced the potential number of reviews and change requests.

I hope this helps!