Below is a simple checklist which needs to be used as a template of questions to ask yourself as well as a potential supplier. This forms the basis of a service level agreement. By deciding, and describing what you are looking for, prior to any meetings with a supplier, it will be possible to ensure that the successful supplier is held to account should there be any issues at the end of the project. 1. What do you want – do you have a ‘vision’? If you have an idea of what you want, describe it, and ensure the other party understands your idea of a perfect website.

2. When do you want it - timescales need to be put in stone. Don’t be ready to allow the website designer to take control of the time scale because this will allow the completion of your site to drag. One way is to stager the payments, although a better way can be to use penalty or bonus payments for hitting a target date. A realistic expectation on both sides will make life much easier for both parties!

3. Who does what, where, when, how. This is all about responsibilities. Who supplies what information, who supplies the pictures. Who alters the content to make it search engine friendly. Who’s responsible for what is a key question to avoid problems in the future. Know the rules from the beginning and enjoy a good working relationship!

4. Who pays what, when, how . This again is about responsibilities, however this time its about the more difficult issue of copyright, and registers owners and cashflow during the project. The classic problem is the domain name. Many website designers register domain names in their own names for speed. However 2 years later, after a rocky working relationship, they decide to charge the clients a fortune to renew or lose a valuable asset. The key is again to know who does what and who owns what from day 1.

5. Acceptance Testing – find an acceptable way of testing e.g.www.w3c.org. Standards of work shouldn’t be subjective, but in the world of IT there are so many standards that its easy to pick one that matches with your quality of work! Again, chose something that works from day one. As a standard, websites should be able to pass the W3C HTML validation at level 1.

6. Delivery times – connected to timescales, will late penalties be used? Related to earlier points, the time scale is more important, the longer a project takes. Arrange both an end date and a few key dates to ensure the end date will get met.

7. Support contract – VERY important. Who fixes what, when will they do it, when do they start charging extras, and what is an extra?

8. Exclusions limits of liability – this is for both parties. Self explanatory but as an example. - Who is responsible for ensuring the website is compliant with the Data Protection Act and the Disability Discrimination Act?

9. Intellectual Property third parties and site – who owns what,? Images and code – Related to point 4 and point 9 – However, this also includes concepts described in the content. i.e. a patent is the ownership of an idea, not of the letters that made up the words that make up the paper of the patent!

10. Domain name – is it registered to you? What about alternatives? This raises the issue of similar names e.g Google.com and goggle.com and gooogle.com are owned by different organisations, however, they people who type in the names are all looking for the same site. Are your alternative domains available?

11. Broadband heavy? – is the flashy site too hard to download with a dialup? With more and more people on broadband and more sites tuned towards it, people with slow connections are getting a raw deal with a very slow loading site. Related to this is the cost of the hosting fees. The more visitors you get, the higher your broadband hosting costs. This is only an issue when your site becomes very successful.

12. Links – got permissions? Are they suitable? Are they alive? This relates to hyperlinks from your site to other sites. If you have links with don’t lead to where you think they link, these are dead links and show an unprofessional approach to the management of your website. Who is responsible for checking these?

There will be other questions that you may have thought of. Don’t feel intimidated to ask about something you don’t feel expert in. Remember, you are the customer, and if the web designer is unable to answer a question in a manner than makes you feel satisfied, then it is the designers fault!