What costs more?

by 18 replies
21
The UI or the programming that makes it work?

It might be a stupid question (because I'm sure it would be more to make it work), but I'm just trying to see what I'm going to be spending with my programmer right now if I continue to use him.

I think he might be overcharging me and right now he is creating my UI and I'm just wondering if I'm going to be spending more or less to make it work.

Also, can anyone give me a price range of just creating (I would think) a pretty simple UI.

Thanks.
#programming #costs
  • Well, generally speaking good programmers make more than good UI designers, however, that is changing.

    I would say you can expect to spend roughly the same amount per hour on either.

    Of course, this really depends on the level of work you are trying to achieve. If it's just meant to be a quick and dirty squeeze page or something, just do with a programmer who charges a good rate.

    Just for reference, I would never charge less than $40/hr for long-term work, and I do more complicated web 2.0/3.0 back-end and front-end development. So if you're doing something simple, you should expect to be able to find a developer for half that who can do a decent UI as well.
    • [1] reply
    • Well heres the deal I have programmer right now charging me 15 hrs. @ $27/hr. Its going to be a desktop software. (Supposedly he does great work from his reviews and has a perfect 10 on vWorker) Isn't that way too much to do a fairly simple UI. Basically everything that needs to be done will be done on the "Home screen".

      The only other screen will be a register screen. But the main screen will have 5 buttons total, a search bar and 3 login boxes, a banner display and a logo area. Thats the "Basic" layout.
      • [1] reply
  • web application or desktop??

    I would expect to pay around the same amount for a desktop application, they basically go hand in hand.

    web application id expect to see variations on both sides, design and back-end stuff are 2 totally different fields when it comes to web applications, you pay for what you get type of deal really, theres no real set in stone differences

    (replied too slow like a turtle and didnt see you responded)
    • [1] reply
    • Sorry when I said Home Screen I meant the main screen on the software. But it will be able to do web searches from it and it will be gathering information from the Internet.
  • oh wow, hes going to develop for multi platform installations, if thats the case, thats definitely a good rate, there isnt many programmers that offer that service

    all the best with the project
    • [2] replies

    • Good thats great to hear. Thanks for your input, really appreciate it!
    • If he's using something like gtk, it's much easier to accomplish cross-platform desktop software with little in the way of having to port your code over from one OS to another.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • If he is developing it for all multiple systems with low level code, then you aren't overpaying him. That is like paying a person to lay a septic system with a shovel, the ditch will be perfect, but it'll take forever and your always gonna pay by the hour on that.

    Develop it in C# on the .NET framework and you can have a UI + code for all your internet searching/scraping/boting needs ready to roll in about 2 hours. Granted, that will only work on Windows computers, unless the Linux or Mac user has a Mono Framework installed (which is pretty standard nowadays), in which case they also can run it.

    Visual Studio is free, and its like using Microsoft Paint to develop UI interface. After that you just send the mockup to the coder and have them give it a shine over, slap out the code, and tie it all together.

    There are negatives to this of course, like the rather simple deobfusication of the .NET framework code (All code is easily dissembled if you give it to the public, just tell everyone it can't be done and wait 2 days) and the potential of not being able to work in an environment that isn't running Windows or the Mono Framework (any non-windows computer that hasn't been updated in 5+ years). There is also generally a larger overhead on CPU resources, though I honestly find the .NET (AgilityPack!) much nicer to work with than pluggin socks through C.

    Bottom line: If this is a product you plan on making tens of thousands of dollars with, you should never shirk the programmer a couple hundred bucks so he can drown himself in coded misery. You oftentimes get what you pay for, even if it's too much. But if he's spending 20 hours designing a webbrowser and a log-in screen with a few buttons, he is definitely using a shovel.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • I have to respectfully disagree. With OSX taking up more and more market share, and the limits of the mono framework, it would be wise to use a UI abstraction layer to do the UI with cross-platform C/C++ as the groundwork. Most open cross-platform gui libs have similar wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) editors to the one you find in Visual Studio.

      Only choose .NET if you only need a windows build. .NET has many advantages if that's the case. If you want your app fully compatible with Linux and Mac, then use one of the many open source GUI frameworks out there.

      This goes right into the "which language is best?" question. There's no right answer. If your programmer takes forever to build a UI that's cross platform, or even takes a noticeable amount more time than someone who just uses .NET, then find another programmer.
      • [1] reply
  • Java is good for cross platform development because java handles the cross platform part. It provides the platform for the developer to work from so they dont need to build a "windows version" and a "mac version" and a "linux version"

    Java is a good choice.
    • [1] reply
    • Thats good to hear. Thanks. Yeah I'm feeling pretty confident now in my choice of worker thanks to everyones response. Hopefully the software is worth it to everyone who will be using it as it will be worth me investing in it!
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  • 21

    What costs more?

    The UI or the programming that makes it work? It might be a stupid question (because I'm sure it would be more to make it work), but I'm just trying to see what I'm going to be spending with my programmer right now if I continue to use him.