FAQs
- What should the customer know about your pricing (e.g., discounts, fees)?
We work like this: Sometimes there is a consulting fee of a few hundred dollars where we evaluate your project and provide recommendations and broad estimate. Often clients use that as a guide to evaluate other providers. If we are chosen for the project, the consulting fee is included to shorten our Discovery process (10-20%), where we design work flow, interfaces, page design, interactive widgets, etc. prior to the Build phase (50-70%) to Testing/GoLive (10-20%). Clients purchase our time in Dialogs Development Units (DU) which start at 5 DU and are discounted in increments of bundled DUs. A DU is more than just an hour time, it adjusts by value. For example, simpler tasks like editing graphics and skinning for brand are a fraction of a DU; application coding by web developers are usually 1 DU per hour; exceptional web engineering by our most senior people may be 1.3 to 1.5 DU. Liken this to your GP doctor, a specialist and a surgeon.
- How did you get started doing this type of work?
In 1982 I was selling office equipment and had some success as a freelance writer. I went into a place called Beacon Electronics to sell them a copier. While I was waiting for the boss, a sales person showed me the new Apple IIe computer and edited the first word processing document I'd ever seen on an
- Describe a recent project you are fond of. How long did it take?
In our "Giving Back" community e-business grant program, we had a matching grant recipient that provides after hour ride service to workers, students, un and under employed at very low rates. Phase 1 was to replace a legacy scheduling application with a web-ready upgrade and a digital phone interface; that's been running now for over a year. Phase 2 is to add interactive tablets for drivers in vehicles and is starting now. Complete project is a fraction of the cost of systems that have to be "shoehorned" to fit and a savings of over $10K per year on maintenance and user fees alone. So affordable that other agencies, like handicapped ride-shares, can clone and 1 year usage saves over $10 in public funding per agency per year and keeps service costs down for people who really need the transport cheap and avaialbe.