here is my website, and my web designer charged me 3000 dollars for it
www.sunflowerflorist.ca
OUTRAGES
how can i politley say you over charged me.. cause she is my friend's daughter

first off - you didn't get overcharged. websites are not cheap and flash work is generally more expensive than HTML. I'm not exactly sure what you're unhappy about here: the design or the price. I think the site lacks a strong design foundation: the typography is poor but the flash transitions and photos look great. If you feel that the design could have been stronger - then you should have voiced your opinion to your designer long before they delivered the final product via some sort of proof/revision/approval process. I would contact your designer and express that you're not happy about the design and see what you can work out.

It's a pretty design.. nicely done, but I'd say 3,000 is a bit over the top, even for flash work.

What I'd be MORE concerned with, since I"m sure you want some visibility in the search engines, is that a flash-only site is virtually INVISIBLE to the search engines ! There is NOTHING there that a SE spider can crawl, no links, nothing. Quite frankly a css-based standard layout would have been a better choice.

I also see that the <embed> tag was used to put the flash into the page (in a table no less ). That <embed> will cause some IE users to get security warnings and they won't see ANYTHING on your site until they do a 2-click dance to 'activate' the active content before they'll see the flash at all.

All-flash sites are also completely inaccessible to anyone using assistive technology (like screen readers) or a plain-text browser.

The photos are beautiful.. but that scrolling nav thing is annoying at best.

use another way to show the flash quicker.
<embed src="**/3181_news75030_0808.swf" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="750" height="30" wmode=transparent>
</embed>

<embed> shouldn't be used AT ALL. There is a sticky in the HTML forum that lists several alternate methods.

yes voice your opinion 3000 dollars is to much for that site.

You shouldn't be complaining at the end of the design process; you should be complaining earlier if at all. How is the designer supposed to know what you want?g

3000 dollars isn't that much really; some Flash sites cost a lot more. The problems about Flash sites notwithstanding, the site is worth between 2 and 3k I think.

* shakes his head * I think I have to apologize for being Canadian again.

For those of you out there who are giving this guy grief for complaining now, not cool. Seriously not cool. Why? Because most people aren't web designers. How are they supposed to know what they really want, and should have? It's up to us to help them, and clearly this person hasn't ended up satisfied. It really doesn't matter whether the person asked for it or not; the person isn't happy. Not only that, there's a friend involved here, and that's always ten times tougher to deal with.

There's no point in comparing this to other Flash sites either, because we don't even know whether or not the person asked for a Flash site (in all likelihood, he/she didn't.) So stop giving this person grief for what is a perfectly legitimate question.

yasm81, I'm going to answer your question with a question: why aren't you happy? I know why I wouldn't be happy with your site if someone charged me $3,000 for it (no search engine visibility, no HTML alternative if Flash was even necessary in the first place, accessibility, the song being played as a default is likely a copyrighted work although I forget what the tune is). Take those reasons, present them to your designer, and see what she says.

you could've gotten a better one with that price.. just follow adam's reasons and you'll get through with it..

EDIT: You could've gone to template-monster and get a ready-made templates at a cheaper price though. They have a lot of templates for your florist shop

Well for $3000 you shouldn't have been afraid to tell them whats wrong with it. The flash design is great but the text is horrible.

Bit late to say she over charged.. why did you buy it if you thought it was too expensive?

I have two thoughts on the design process, please keep in mind that these are not specific to your site-
1 You need to sit down with your designer first, and discuss elements, themes, colors you want. They are a designer, not a mind reader. After discussing the design elements, it is up to the designer to put them together in a pleasing and usable manner. This is where you decide if you like it, what needs to go, what needs to be added.

2 Do not sit over their shoulder with a huge list of "Could you just...". Every time you ask them to just change this, just change that, it is time they should be charging you for. If you don't have a clear idea of what you want, how will they?

I once had a lady ask me to design a Jewelry webstore for her, and she wanted it to look like the Business card she designed on her new Mac (Because all the artists use Macs, don't they?). Well... to be honest, her card looked like Don Ho threw up on it. Lots of purples and reds and greens and palm trees... blech! To my embarrassment, I did. It had to be the ugliest site I have ever seen, and certainly the ugliest one I had ever done.

I also had a couple ask me to design their real estate site. They even went out and bought Dreamweaver, so I could work on it at their office. That was a huge mistake! I spent six hours there one night, with "Could you just..." being repeated over and over. "Could you just increase the font size a little?" I would, and the wife would print the webpage out on paper and look at it. "This doesn't fit right." "That's because you are printing a wide page in a portrait format." "Oh... Well, could you just...", and again she would print it out... And believe me, they got charged for every hour I was there.

it would not be as hard to complain if she was not a friends kid.. easier to put a stranger straight and not worry about their feelings

didn't you ask how much it was going to cost in the first place??!

Here's my 2 cents...

Flash in my book is VERY dated. It was huge even just a few years back but as more and more people become familiar with todays (standards) the less and less I see it being used.

The Flash that was used is probably a template of some sort that has just been re-edited. Just a guess by based on graphic (sunflower) on the logo.

It's always unfortunate when you get involved with a friend or neighbor and things go wrong. I have had this happen myself. One of which I'm no longer on speaking terms with...

Firstly. Take my advise. Let it be a lesson learned situation. Yes, $3000.00 is a lot of money for that site. But you will be better off just forgetting about it than creating a situation were you might have issues with your daughter. It's just not worth it.

Secondly. What you are doing in here is what you should have done from the beginning. Research! I have a little saying "Google is your best friend" if I ever have a question about ANYTHING, I Google it first!

You may have saved yourself 3 grand had you spent a little time doing this.

Write it down as a life lesson and move on. Shame on the web person for putting you in this position...

you could a still talk to the friend's daughter in a non-confrontational way ?

Well, I had a quote from a designer, for a 5 page flash site, he wanted $4000 for it, I think that is definitely overpriced! Only 5 pages! Although the client wants photos/font transition effects when loading etc. Does it get that expensive really for a 5 page flash website?