Integrated Web Services

Part of the IWS mission is to help people at Cornell get good results and good value for any work they have done on the web—whether we do that work or not.

To that end, here's a list of questions that you can ask about any website vendor to better evaluate what they can offer you and what they'd be like to work with.

You can also download this list as a Word document, with IWS's answers to the questions and spaces for answers from other vendors.

General Questions

• How long have they been in business?
• How large is their shop?
• What are their areas of expertise?
• What, if anything, do they regularly contract out?
• What’s their portfolio of completed sites?
• Have they done work for academic clients before? Have they done Cornell sites?
• If appropriate, have they done large sites, dynamic sites, e-commerce, intranets, etc. (depending on your requirements)?
• Can they give you references to satisfied customers? 
• Are they approved contractors for Cornell University?

Work Style

• How do they prefer to communicate—phone, email, meetings, etc.?
• Are they willing and able to adapt to your preferred style?
• Do they present technical ideas at the level of detail that you’re comfortable with?
• Do they offer alternatives, or single solutions?
• Do they return phone calls and emails promptly?
• How do they propose to deal with possible changes in the scope or direction of the project as it progresses?

Project Management

• How much time do they expect a Project Manager to spend on your project?
• What kind of experience does their Project Manager have?
• Do they also want a Project Manager on your side?
• Do they clearly define what they expect each of the team members, theirs and yours, to do and be responsible for?
• What kind of reporting, issue tracking, and financial statements will they provide? How often?
  

Consultation

• Do they have a standard consulting/discovery process?

If so:

• Can they tell you how long it will take and what it will cost?
• What are the deliverables from this process?
• Can they show you a sample project plan? How about a functional specification?
• If you review a functional specification, does it contain enough clear information that the specified function could be built from it, and tested to it?
• Can they conduct focus groups or usability studies, if you want them?
• Will they discuss the costs and benefits of various approaches to implementing functionality and accessibility, and help you choose the options that best suit your needs and budget?
• Can they develop plans for workflow, issue management, risk management, testing, training and documentation?

If they don’t have a consulting process, how do they determine and document requirements, schedule, and budget?

Design

• Is their design portfolio good-sized and diverse?
• Do you like their designs? Are they readable? When you look at them, is it immediately obvious what you should do to find information on the site?
• Do they offer different levels of customization based on your needs and budget?
• What’s their process for design approval? How long does it take? How many alternative designs and cycles of review do they propose?
• Do they ask you about sites or features that you like (or don’t like)? How do they learn about and react to your preferences?
• Do they offer image development? Image processing?
• Will they make an effort to work from images you already have, or royalty-free images?
• Have they clearly explained what they need in any images you give them for the web?
• Have they clearly explained about image copyright and royalty issues?
• Can they provide illustration? Photography?
• How have they presented the issues that should inform design choices such as branding, compatibility with print, cost tradeoffs, usability and accessibility issues?
• Do they understand and comply with the Section 508 Accessibility guidelines?
• Have they worked with the Cornell University identity standards?

Programming

• Do they have a particular template or technology that they prefer to work in?
• Do they implement their sites using css (cascading style sheets)? If so, do they use separate css files?
• Are their sites div- or table-based? Have they explained the difference between these approaches?
• To what extent do they include adjustment code for making their sites work properly in a range of browsers?
• Can they work within a content-management system, such as CommonSpot (which is the Cornell standard)?
• What language(s) do they use for functional programming? (You might want to ask for css and code samples to be reviewed by a programmer you trust.)
• Do they maintain standards or work to develop a set of best practices?
• Will they document their work so you, or others, can modify it later?
• Can they work on your site even if they don’t host it? What experience do they have with remote-access situations?
• If you need controlled access (such as to a confidential faculty-only section of your site), how would they implement that; do they have experience with Kerberos (a Cornell standard)?
• If you want to do transaction processing, have they implemented secure Verisign access before?
  

Content

• Can they help you with content development? Editing/proofing?
• Are they knowledgeable about writing for the web?
• Can they help you choose or develop a style manual for your site?
• Can they enter and format content? At what rate is this work charged?
• Alternatively, can they deliver an “empty” site for you to put content into?
• How is content changed or updated?
• Can they work with a content-management system, such as CommonSpot?

Multimedia

• How much experience do they have doing animations or video for the web?
• Do you like their demos? (They should be able to show you demos.)
• Can they offer a visual style that you like, and that fits with the design you envision for your website?
• Do they have existing modules that they can adapt for your use at lower cost than developing from scratch?
• Do they do their own video/audio recording? If not, who do they work with, and do they take responsibility for their contractors’ work?
• Can they give you an itemized estimation and schedule?
• What techniques do they use to maximize performance and minimize download time?
• What formats do they support?
• Can they provide streaming audio or video?

Testing and Browsers

• What kind(s) of testing/quality assurance do they offer for pages, interactives, etc.?
• Do they have work tested by someone other than the person who did it?
• At what point(s) can clients inspect and review the site as it’s built?
• What range of browsers do they support?
• Can they offer testing for software applications as well as websites?

Support and Maintenance

• Do they offer ongoing site support and maintenance?

• How do they charge for support?
• Do they charge for correcting errors in development?
• What’s their process for requesting support or opening a ticket?
• What response time do they offer?
• What can they offer for training and documentation? Is the expectation that you’ll be able to take over the maintenance of your site, or that you’ll return to them for any additions or changes?