Can You Easily Find the Information You Are Looking For?

This is critical. If you find yourself on a web site, the chances are you were looking for something in particular. Ensure that the elements of the designer's web site are easy to find. Check that you are able to quickly and easily spot the contents of the pages and move freely between pages.

Other design considerations are as follows:-

- Is the text clear and easy to read?

- Are the pages uncluttered and easy on the eye?

- Are there elements such as excessive animation distracting the user from the main text?

- Does the site appear quickly?

- Does the colour scheme and design fit in with the brand of the company (take the logo as a benchmark)?

The Technical Bits

Now this is important! Why?

First, because there is legislation in both the UK, the US and a variety of European countries that requires your site be accessible to disabled users. Failure to adhere to this will result in your having to hire a third party company to re-code and possibly redesign your entire web site.

Secondly, if your web site is not coded using standards (set by the www council) it may not function correctly when viewed by different people using different equipment.

Finally, it is a well known time-proven fact that if your visitor is kept waiting more than 10 seconds for a web page to appear, they will move on.

SO HOW DO I TELL ?!

I hear you cry in desperation! Well, you don't need to be a geek or even know the first thing about web design, html or programming. All you need are the addresses of a couple of useful websites and an explanation of how to use the tools found there. A web page has been created for your convenience that contains links to these sites and detailed instructions on how to use the tools provided and evaluate the results. The link appears at the foot of this page.

It should be noted that evaluating these elements will give you some idea of the technical ability of your chosen web site design companies. There are many many more issues that a web site designer should be aware of, and in fact should take care of without you even knowing about it. The points listed here are, in our opinion, those that will have the greatest impact on your business and are so often ignored by less scrupulous web design companies.

Step 3: Contact the Web Design Firms

Now you should have pretty much narrowed down the possibilities you can go ahead and get in touch. Most companies will jump at the chance to talk to you and convince you of their product offerings. However, what you are interested in are the facts, not the sales pitch.

You have already established their design and technical capabilities, now you are interested in their ability to fulfil your needs and provide you with efficient service. Ask for some references from their most recent projects. Ask for the web addresses, contact names, details and completion dates. In approaching them in this way you ensure that you're not getting the one or two satisfied clients that they have serviced in the past, you are getting up to date clients and up to date projects.

Once you have their details, call the referees. The following are some idea's of the kind of information you might want to extract from these people:-

Verify the details you have been given in respect to project completion dates.

Find out about the quality of service the client received

Ask how able the web design company was in establishing and anticipating the needs of their client.

Discuss deadlines and timely delivery

Try to establish how effective the site has been in achieving the original goals of the client

Ask if the client has any complaints

Don't be afraid to speak frankly, whether satisfied with the service or not, most people are happy to be given the opportunity to sing praises or vent frustrations.

Step 4: The End

Well, having done all of this you should have a pretty good idea which company is going to provide a solution that's going to work for you. It may seem like a lot of work, but not only are you about to part with a substantial sum of money, but if the web site you receive doesn't do its job properly, you could well be missing out on new business or worse still convincing potential clients to go elsewhere.