Creating an Effective Web Design Contract

Many working relationships become sour because of a lack of common understanding between the client and the supplier. A common understanding of the various aspects of the work help in ensuring that there shall be no disputes. However, this is not something that should be left to chance. Assuming that verbal communication is adequate to ensure a common understanding is extremely dangerous. Ensure that you have a written and signed contract agreement, especially if you are getting your web design done by a third party.

Some of the aspects that you need to cover in a web design agreement are:

-       Scope of the work – This is the definition of the scope of work that is being done by the supplier. It is also a good idea to detail responsibilities at this stage so that each party knows what their role will be in the successful completion of the job.

-       Pricing and payment terms – Obviously, the pricing needs to be detailed too. While a fixed cost does not leave much room for confusion later, there are some projects that merit an hourly rate costing. In such cases, it is pertinent to document the manner in which the hours utilized shall be measured and monitored. The payment terms and release of funds is also a critical area that needs mention.

-       Terms of termination – It needs to be known by either party what the ramifications are of wanting to be out of the arrangement after a certain proportion of the project has been completed. The penalties and the timeframe of exit need to be detailed clearly.

-       Intellectual property rights – With aspects like web design there is always the issue on intellectual property rights. While the designers feel that the website is their creation, the client feels that it has paid for the work and therefore the designs belong to them. Irrespective of what is agreed upon between the client and the web design company, do make sure to detail whether the designer can use them as samples to showcase his work.

-       Confidentially and non disclosure – An important aspect of any web design agreement, this needs to cover whether the designer is at liberty to state that he is working for a particular client, let alone discussing the details of a project. The details of the confidentiality should be discussed in detail to avoid slip ups here.

-       Definition of liability – While the schedule and timelines are discussed in the scope of work and pricing sections, in most cases, the designer prefer to limit their liability with regards to any monetary losses that the client faces.

-       Employee soliciting – Many clients end up soliciting employees of their design company so that they can get edits and upgrades done for much less as compared to the fee that the web design company chares. In most cases of hiring a web design service the non employee soliciting clause is mentioned upfront.

While most of these aspects also apply to service providers other than web design suppliers and professionals, the importance of a contract that covers each of these areas is critical for a better relationship with the design firm.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 11:39 pm and is filed under Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.