[Websg Meetup] Post Meetup Discussion

[jim]

Hi'yall,

Was reading up on presentation notes/posts of the last meetup which i missed
the bulk of it when I came across yuhui's point about dev charging higher
for the reason of having longer "testing" period during development.

He wrote that: "complying with Web standards includes adhering to
accessibility guidelines. These require even more time to test for
compliance. Because of the extra hours, they have to charge more."

>From a client's point of view, this reasoning will probably not be accepted.
Most clients will not give a frag about complying to those standards we talk
about, unless like in the States where it is a law. Although we as dev can
sell them the advantages of doing it the "right" way, to increase charges
because it will take more time to test, to them, they'll probably just ask
you to drop it, to save the $$.

Furthermore, this might ruffle some feathers, but as a developer, when
coding a site, shouldn't we be coding the site with compliancy in mind?
Correct me if I'm wrong, most time consuming portion during development is
coding is usually to ensure our site display according to our layout we
mocked. Accessibility issues, should have been accounted for when we code,
eg. putting the alt attributes etc... so when it comes to testing, it'll
more for aesthetic reasons than accessibility.

So where does this leave us? I think we can choose to charge more - NOT for
the additional hours we might clock, but the mere fact we have that
knowledge and expertise to code the site that will look good and still be
"right" and when we "sell" our services ... it should come with the
assurance that whatever we code comes with the "surely compliant" chop.. :P

Anyway, I think this is a minor point but will probably affect individual
freelance developers more so than those who work in agencies...Sometimes,
how you structure ur cost .. and how you present it will make ur wallet feel
better. :)

Ok...it's a Friday ... and we shouldn't burden ourselves with such "heavy"
topic... ;)
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