General / Off-Topic Question for website developers

[Andy Kappa]

We had a visit from our IFA the other evening to discuss our investments. He's also a bit of a friend so as usual the conversation wandered around the main topic a bit.

He was telling us about his new website that he's hired a specialist to build for him. I won't say who they are in case anybody here works for them but they are listed as a company that specialises in website design for financial services agencies.

Here's the brief that he gave them (summarised to avoid boring people to death):

• He himself is in his 50's - he's an intelligent man but very much an end-user when it comes to technology.
• His clients are exclusively 50+ years old.
• He wants to set up the website so as to give them easy access to their investment data - a portal is really what he's after.
• He specified a website design that conveyed a safe pair of hands - somebody that current and future clients can trust with their life savings.

After stalling for several months while continuing to take his money, they sent him a draft homepage recently. It featured a glossy, full-colour image of a twenty-something snowboarder skiing almost vertically down the side of a mountain.

I know there's quite a few website designers around the forum. Anybody care to speculate as to how this financial specialist designer could have decided that this image was a good idea? I'm open to suggestions (as is he...).

 

[Zieman]

Looks like a "milk the dummy grandpa of his money and then dump him" -scheme to me.

And yes, I did read your entire post so I know the customer is an intelligent man. But the 'specialist' doesn't seem to be one though.

 

[Guido]

Oh dear.

1- did they set a brief in writing
2- design work should be deposit payment followed by milestones agreed in advance, balance on signoff, not monthly
3- fit for purpose applies to the sales of goods and services, this seems so far unfit. Contest payments, go with a real WD firm.

 

[Andy Kappa]

Thanks for the help guys. Information has been duly forwarded.

 

[Dashing Blade]

. . . He was telling us about his new website that he's hired a specialist to build for him. I won't say who they are in case anybody here works for them but they are listed as a company that specialises in website design for financial services agencies. . . .
. . .
After stalling for several months while continuing to take his money . . .

Unacceptable and unprofessional. Certainly no specialist. Full money back or deploy hardpoints.
£50 - £100 of legal advice from solicitor to tweak strategy which should be something like "couple of letters then small claims court"

Suspect all of us in IT would be interested in a "round number, ball-park" on the amount of credits we're talking about here.