Terms of Service v7

Estimates/Pricing

Before I start a project (a task or a series of tasks) I’ll provide an estimate of involved costs and turn-around times.

Particularly for complex projects, estimates are done thoroughly as they include the time taken to complete the project including time taken for reviews, quality assurance and launch.

The more information that you provide, the more accurate the estimate, but in the end estimates are just estimates. Whenever I foresee a project going beyond the estimate, I’ll warn you as soon as possible so we can discuss further action.

Estimates are valid for 30 days from the time it was first issued.

Estimates must be kept confidential.

Payment

If an estimate of involved costs exceeds $1000, I may require a 20% upfront payment before I begin.

In some cases I may choose to work at my hourly rate and in that case I will require payment every-time 5 hours lapses.

I’ll email you the invoice and you may choose to Pay via PayPal or EFT.

If an invoice isn’t paid within 14 business days that the invoice is sent, I am not entitled to continue unless the invoice is paid.

More information can be provided (eg. design changes) after the project has already started but will implicate additional costs and/or another estimate.

Resources

In order to complete your project I may require resources such as web designs, web fonts, plugins and access to APIs. Failure to supply required resources may incur longer turn-around times hence additional costs.

Web designs

If a project involves building a website, web page, or part of a web page, then I’ll require the designs of how you want it to work unless otherwise stated.

Accepted formats include Invision, Adobe XD, Sketch, PSD and Illustrator.

Responsive Web designs

When I build web pages I make them responsive and I won’t always require designs for how they will work on mobile and tablets. In fact if you supply me with such designs more time is required to make sure I that match the designs exactly to how you want it to work on mobile, tablet as well as desktop.

Furthermore it gets more complicated because not all mobile and tablet devices have the same dimensions, not everybody uses the same orientation when they view the website on their device (some people view a website on landscape, and others on a portrait) and not everybody has the same settings (eg. Some people have different overriding settings on their web browser such as font size and scroll-bar visibility).

In order to find out the best way to make a webpage responsive is to be involved in the building process. So for a smooth process I’ll always suggest that you just supply me with web designs for the desktop version only, and allow me to improvise for mobile and tablet, and then we’ll reassess from there.

I’ll greatly accept designs for other devices, they will just take longer.

Checkout designs

If you require me to build an ecommerce component for a website, I won’t require designs for the checkout pages (eg. cart, checkout, my account, thank you etc.). I will have a template that is already built, tested and proven robust, so when I build this I’ll just let the checkout pages use the styles as the rest of the website (eg. fonts, colors, spacing etc.). Once this has been built we can reassess form there.

Complex websites

If I find that you want to build a website or a website component that is complex, for instance if it involves;

A lot of forms (eg. registration forms, multi-step forms)
A process that requires the user to go through multiple steps in order to access the desired information (eg. advanced search filters, CAD)
When the website has to pull information from an API (eg. A booking system)
Large amount of content (over 100s of posts)
Implicates a lot of thought on how to optimize the overall UX

Then I’ll need to prototype, this involves building the website or a component without any having any branding elements (It’ll have no fonts, have a dominantly grey color scheme). The purpose of the prototype is to figure out;

how all the information is structured and organized on the front-end (the for the user)
how all the information is structured and organized on the back-end (for the admin)
how the user uses the website (ie. navigates and achieves their goals)
how all of this will work on other devices
what are the limitations on how much we can customize the design

And all of is can be achieved efficiently by simply building the website before designing the website.

Web fonts

To have a font that’s not featured on the Google font library, I’ll need you to supply me with the web fonts with files including woff, ttf and svg. You’ll also need to make sure that you have the right to use them (ie. Most fonts require have a font that requires that you have licence to use them on your website.

Plugins

Some plugins are required to be purchased, in that case I require the client to purchase the plugin themselves.

Whilst I’ll do as much as I can within my power, in the end I’m not responsible for the consequences of the plugin.

APIs

Whilst I’ll do as much as I can within my power, in the end I’m not responsible for the consequences of the API.

Website/Server access

If your project involves me making changes to an existing website, I’ll require all the logins necessary in order to make a full backup.

Quality of work

Accuracy

I will build the website or website component to match the designs your provided, but some elements may be off by a few pixels (font weights, margins, spacings etc.).

Compromisations

Not all browsers and devices support all the same features, hence some elements in the web design may have to be compromised.
Examples:

If your website has a full-screen video background, that video will be replaced by an image on phone because Autoplay is not supported on all phones.
If your website has a parallax image, that parallax effect will be disabled for touch devices because on some devices scroll events aren’t as smooth as they are on desktop.
You’re website may feature a file upload field, but plugin may be used to generate that field one that may offer limited customisation features.

SEO

I can optimise the coding of the website so search engines can crawl and index the pages. We’ll add a robots.txt file and xml sitemaps and the things required for a search-engine friendly website according to Google webmaster. We’ll provide you with the tools you need to order to build your SEO rankings. But your SEO rankings is determined by your content and popularity more than how your website is built.

If your serious about SEO, we would also recommend seeing he SEO experts first OR we can get the designs reviewed by the SEO expert before we build.

Data entry

When I build a website, I do enough data entry so the client can understand how everything works (how the pages are set up, how the navigation works, how the custom fields are set up).

Soon we give the client access to the WordPress admin and allow the client to make edits and additions. Because during this stage the client may realise that some things will need to change (eg. a new custom field is required, or the client may realise that the images that he’s uploading is too small so the website layout will need to be altered in order to accommodate this).

The stage of data entry is part of the debugging process.

CMS

As a standard I’ll give you the ability to update your site with new content, but you won’t have the ability to redesign the site. For instance, you’ll be able to edit;

Post content
Page content
Images

Other

If I’ve built you a new website I may have some WordPress plugins installed for your convenience. Once you activate these plugins you may be guided to complete configuration and setup process. These plugins include…

WordFence – This is to make your website more secure from hackers and malware.
WP Rocket – This is to make help make your website load faster.
Akismet – This is to help protect your website from spam.
Updraft – This is to created automated backups.

WordPress features

If I built your site using WordPress you’ll see that WordPress comes with a wide variety of features and tools, but you won’t need all of them. So you may find that some features aren’t fully supported.

Examples

If you want a website that doesn’t have a blog, you’ll find that the comments section is unavailable.
If you want a one-pager website, you’ll find that you can’t add a shop section simply by installing a plugin by yourself, you’ll need me to build more templates and styles.

Quality Assurance

Support browsers and devices

IE11+, latest versions of Chrome, Opera, Safari, Firefox, iOS and Android.

Anything else older than that will be a required extra.

Retina

Retina is required as an extra, furthermore your live server will need to be accessed to see if it can handle the load.

Staging server

You’re project will be hosted on my staging server.

Reviews

After I’ve completed a project this is your opportunity to inform me of any mistakes I made so I will fix. You can also provide changes for me to action, these changes are to…

Spacing, alignment
Font sizes
Font families
1 font change
Animation/Transitions (to what was included in the original brief, adding more animations and transitions will cost extra).
Up to 2 layout changes

Communication

I use Quire to list all of your feedback. Alternatively if you have a task management system that works the same way, I will use that.

Other developers

If other developers are involved in the project, I require that we will work using sharing/collaboration tool such as Github or Bitbucket.

launch

If you allow me to deploy the site for you, I’ll require all the necessary logins (domain registrar, web hosting). In some cases I may also require you to get an account with another third party software.

Since the website is not on my server I’m not responsible for the implications of the website.

If launch time implicates over 4 hours then I charge my hourly rate starting after the 4th hour.

Server

Whilst I’ll do as much as I can within my power, in the end I’m not responsible for the consequences of the server.

7 day warranty

After a project is complete, you have a 7 day warranty. So in the unlikely case that within 7 days if you notice anything about the project that hasn’t been completed properly, I’ll fix it for free of charge.

After the warranty period is over, whether or not if the problem with the website or webpage is my mistake I will charge in order to fix it.

Website maintenance

After a project is complete, the website is yours and you are welcome to do what you want with it.

WordPress Upgrades

From time to time, plugins and WordPress will require updating. Updates typically happen when developers release security patches or add extra functionality. It’s good practice to keep your themes, plugins & WordPress version updated to the latest versions. The top two reasons for sites being hacked are insecure passwords & outdated (vulnerable) software.

As a result of updating WordPress and it’s plugins, WordPress themes will need to be updated as well. If this does happen outside of the 7 day warranty then this will be regarded as additional work.

WordPress plugins

I strongly advise all my clients and colleagues to choose plugins from credible developers/suppliers.

The number of plugins and third-party APIs out there are enormous, and it’s impossible for any developer to know them all inside out. I may not always know the answer, but I’ll know how to find it (i.e. when I read the web developer documentation, I’ll understand it).

Confidentiality and GDPR Data Processing

Throughout the project or series of tasks I may require sensitive information such as access to web hosting accounts and payment gateways. I’ll endeavour to keep sensitive information safe.

What information I may collect

The following table outlines all the information and personal data that I may collect and how it’ll be used.

Data collected	About this data	Why I need this	How it’s collected and retained	How data is stored	How long will data be stored	Update
Your contact details	Contact details may include Name, Phone number, email address, physical address. In some cases I may also require details that allow me to communicate with the developer using a live chat or video conferencing software.	These are essential details in order for both of us to communicate with each other throughout the project.	Using onetimesecret.com or by any other emails under the discretion of the Data subject	Your data will be stored in my Google accounts calendar.	Data will be stored until your specific request to delete all contact details. This will include deleting all communication regarding the project (eg. All emails, txt messages)	The information may be update at the data subject’s request.
Hosting Details	Name of the company(s) hosting your website and DNS settings. Username and password. I may need one-time passcode	These details are all required if you want me to launch the website on your behalf.	Using onetimesecret.com or by any other emails under the discretion of the Data subject	It’ll be temporarily stored on the development server.	These details will be deleted after 7 days after the project is complete.	The information may be update at the data subject’s discretion (eg. if the subject wants to change the password)
Developer contact details	Contact details may include Name, Phone number and email address. In some cases I may also require details that allow me to communicate with the developer using a live chat or video conferencing software.	These are essential details in order for both of us to communicate with each other throughout the project.	Using onetimesecret.com or by any other emails under the discretion of the Data subject	Your data will be stored in my Google accounts calendar.	Data will be stored until your specific request to delete all contact details. This will include deleting all communication regarding the project (eg. All emails, txt messages)	The information may be update at the data subject’s request.
Website’s database	This database may include data of other subjects (eg. website contributors, ecommerce customers).	I may need to set up a local staging server, this enables me to proceed with tasks more efficiently as well as track changes.	The database can be accessed using the hosting details provided.	It’ll be temporarily stored on the development server.	These details will be deleted after 7 days after the project is complete.	The information may be updated in sync with the website.
Payment gateway access	This database may include data of other subjects (eg. website contributors, ecommerce customers).	I may need to create and/or fix the integration between your Payment Gateway and the website.	Using onetimesecret.com or by any other emails under the discretion of the Data subject	It’ll be temporarily stored on the development server.	These details will be deleted after 7 days after the project is complete.	The information may be updated in sync with the website.

After I’ve collected any of this information I also agree to provide details and answer all questions relating to personal data at your request, make improvements to take appropriate measures to help with GDPR compliance.

In order to make your project GDPR compliant you must also

Generate your own privacy policy including GDPR data processing agreement.
Accept minor design changes to allow for GDPR compliance/

Business implications

After a project is complete, I’m not responsible for any implications of the website, for instance I’m not responsible for;

Any content on the website that is illegal
Any content on the website that is offensive to some audiences
Sales or loss of sales implicated from the website
Legal advice regarding GDPR.

Ownership

After a project is complete, I’ll give you with all the files that I’ve produced for this project. As soon as this is done. I’m not entitled to keep a copy of the files.

Contact/Availability

Provided that there are no outstanding invoices or resources I’m entitled to complete projects, attend meetings and meet deadlines that we have both agreed on. I’m also contactable outside business hours (9 to 17:30 UTC+10:00 timezone) and may even be available at short notice, however I am not entitled to be available at your every demand, it’s your responsibility to be considerate of my time and book me at appropriately.

I am contactable via phone, email, live chat, and video conference call.

Inactivity

If there have been no changes, requests or communication regarding a project after 28 days, the project may be terminated and I’m no longer entitled to continue this project.

Completion

The project is considered complete after 7 days when the project was launched or when considered inactive. Hence the project is no longer bound to this agreement. You are liable to pay all owing costs.

Last modified: September 26, 2020