I was taught very early on that a customer proposal should be quite detailed. Not only details about the approach, tools, services, methodology etc. Detailed breakdown of cost too.

Why? Because in order to price a proposal properly you have to understand exactly what it is you are planning to do. If you break down the cost in terms of ‘How long will it take to do that piece?’, you can more accurately work out the price. The main benefit of all this is twofold.

1. You give the customer an accurate cost estimate. They will appreciate that.
2. You avoid shooting yourself in the foot by underpricing in order to get the job in. You can easily justify how much a thing will cost if you know exactly what it is you need to do.

This is a new client and the project is now officially underway!! We had our first meeting today via a telephone conference call and all of the project team members were on the call. We discussed a revision of the page comp that I initially supplied as a first draft.

Web Page Design – Revised

The project team members are: Lucile Capo-Miller – Owner Kimberly Ross – PR Gigi Ortwein – Graphic Design Stephen Tickner – Developer

So, this is an example page composition that is the 1st draft of a redesign I’m working on. I know this is a bit small to view properly, but I hope you get the idea of how this process works.

Web Page Design

You then work with the client using the graphics package to tweak the design until they are happy with it. Then it’s time to go off and start creating the html etc!

I’ll post more as we progress with this project.

When I start a new web project with a client the first design task is usually what is referred to as doing a page composition or page comp.

The page comp is a web page layout and design that is done in a graphics package such as Macromedia Fireworks. The page design and layout can easily be created with colors, borders, fonts, menus etc, so the look and feel of the page can be quickly drawn.

Then I either send the graphic as a jpeg file in an email to the client or put the graphic in a web page and make it available on a test domain.

I’m going to be talking about some current projects that I’m working on. Most of the client based work that I do is web based, so I’ll probably show some designs, talk about the development process and tools that I’m using.

I’m also going to talk about search engine optimization (SEO) as it relates directly to projects I’m working on. I’ll show you some tools that I use and discuss techniques for getting good search engine placement.

My name is Steve Tickner and I’m starting a business blog for a number of different reasons. I am a professional software developer specializing in Microsoft tools and technologies. What you might refer to as a Microsoft shop. I develop websites and Windows software programs.

I’m going to start by making some general posts about the projects I’m currently involved in and the technologies I’m working with.

In the future I will be focusing on a number of specific technologies, services and projects.

My company is TRS Technology based in Sarasota: Web design & Windows .NET software development. Sarasota Web Design