PSD To HTML: 16 Good Questions to Ask Before Hiring PSD to HTML Provider

16 Good Questions to Ask Before Hiring PSD to HTML Provider

Written by admin on June 22, 2009

16 Good Questions to Ask before hiring PSD to HTML provider For our new project PSD To HTML Companies, we decided to hire a PSD to HTML service provider to get better idea about this industry.

Last month we were interviewing companies for the project. Prior to conducting the interview, we visited few websites and prepared a list of questions we wanted to ask.

I am sharing my list with you all and feel free to add any question, which you think one should ask before awarding the project

1. Are you a company or freelancer? If freelancer, is it part time or full time?
We were looking for a person who can deliver the project on time, so we decided that we would either go with a company or with full time freelancer. You can get part time freelancer for much less but then you have to negotiate on timeline. Some people prefer companies for peace of mind (since they are more reliable and have better process) and assurance but a few prefer Freelancers so that they can communicate directly with the person who is working on their project.

2. What is your time zone?
In outsourcing, time zone plays a very crucial role. For the success of any project, proper communication is a must. For our project, we wanted our design, development teams to be able to communicate with HTML coders. So we decided to go with a company/freelancer in same time zone.

3. What’s your Experience in writing hand coded html?
We didn’t want our coder to use any WYSIWYG software to write our code. We needed hand coded html and were looking for a person who had at least 3 yr. of experience. Though experience directly affects the cost but we needed a fast and accurate delivery. You can hire a fresher or less experienced coder at much lesser cost.

4. What is W3C?
Just to check their knowledge.

5. Will you validate our markup and CSS on w3c?
Standard compliant website was our first requirement. We wanted our markup and CSS code validated against w3c standard.

6. What’s the current browser usage statistics?
This question is to know how updated they are with the latest industry trends.

7. Can you write Div based XHTML?
We are against using tables in our markup. Div based XHTML website performs better in Search engines and it loads faster. It is easy to manage and make changes in div based website.

8. How comfortable are you with SVN?
With 20+ members working on same project, it is necessary to manage the different versions of the code. With Virtual team, it becomes even more important.

9. Can you show us some sample of your coding?
To check their coding style to make sure they always validate their code, and that the code works with different browsers.

10. Small coding test
We gave them our left panel and ask them to code it within specified period of time.

11. Error solving
We gave them a code, which was not working on IE6 and ask them to fix and then validate it.

12. References
We asked for 3 references with whom they had worked in last 6 months.

13. How you charge?
Generally, IT industry works on hourly basis and it is hard to predict any amount. But fortunately, PSD to html conversion service is more like commodity and you can get fixed cost. There are separate rates for home page and inner page.

14. How fast can you do?
Everybody needs fast delivery. We were also looking for a reasonable time frame like 3-5 days for home page and 1-2 day for inner page.

15. What are you guarantee?
If you are working first time with any company, it is better to have all bases covered just in case you are not satisfied with the output.

16. What can you assure us?
Just to know what can we expect in final delivery like browsers and operating systems they support, adherence to standard compliance, search engines optimization etc.

If you have any other question(s) you think should be asked, feel free to add to the list.

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Comments

06-30-2009
4:37 am

XHTML Candy

Hi,

Nice article. We will be glad to answer any of these questions. We are committed to provide 100% satisfaction to our customers.

XHTML Candy
http://xhtmlcandy.com/
07-09-2009
10:48 pm

Nancy

Very useful list! I will for sure refer to these questions when I have to hire a psd to html provider for my next project.
07-09-2009
10:52 pm

Jay

I think browser compatibility with IE6 is a very common issue. So we should also ask to see if the they are comfortable with IE6 hacks.
07-18-2009
4:45 pm

Tomas

We usually ask for 4 references and they all should be higher in designation
08-03-2009
1:39 am

Designing Studios

Excellent post, we r also one of the service providers, Experts in web designing services, tableless design, and in converting design to html
09-29-2009
1:13 am

XhtmlWeaver

Excellent artcile and all the list is very useful.

We are PSD to XHTML providers and we already deliver valid xhtml 1.0 strict with ie6+, firefox 2+ safari 3+ and chrome.

Cheers,
10-20-2009
8:24 pm

PSDsToHTML

Good article. Not a question, but check for negative/positive feedback on the web for the provider and whether they have enough bandwidth at the current moment, if discussing with a smaller provider.