Christchurch Web Solutions Terms Of Business
SUMMARY:
We’ll always do our best to fulfil your needs and meet your expectations, but it’s important to have things written down so that we both know what’s what, who should do what and when, and what will happen if something goes wrong. In these terms you won’t find any complicated legal mumbo jumbo or long passages of unreadable text. We’ve no desire to trick you into signing something that you might later regret. What we do want is what’s best for both parties, now and in the future.
What do both parties agree to?
You: You have the authority to enter into a contract on behalf of yourself, your company or your organisation. You’ll give us the assets and information we tell you we need to complete the project. You’ll do this when we ask and provide it in the formats we ask for. You’ll review our work, provide feedback and approval in a timely manner too. Deadlines work two ways, so you’ll also be bound by dates we set together. You also agree to stick to the payment schedule set out for the job.
Us: We have the experience and ability to do everything we’ve agreed with you and we’ll do it all in a professional and timely manner. We’ll endeavour to meet every deadline that’s set and on top of that we’ll maintain the confidentiality of everything you give us.
THE DETAILS
Design
We create look-and-feel designs, and flexible layouts that adapt to the capabilities of many devices and screen sizes. We create designs iteratively and use predominantly HTML and CSS so we won’t waste time mocking up every template as a static visual. We may use visuals to indicate a creative direction (colour, texture and typography.) We call that ‘atmosphere.’
You’ll have plenty of opportunities to review our work and provide feedback. We’ll either share a Dropbox, Google Drive folder or Github repository or development site with you and we’ll have regular contact.
If, at any stage, you change your mind about what you want to be delivered and are not happy with the direction our work is taking you’ll pay us in full for the time we’ve spent working with you until that point and terminate the contract.
Text content
Unless agreed separately, we’re not responsible for inputting text or images into your content management system or creating every page on your website. We provide professional copywriting and editing services, so if you’d like us to create new content or input content for you, we can provide a separate estimate for that.
Spelling, typos & grammar
Whilst we do everything possible to make sure we don’t produce work that has mistakes in it, sometimes things slip through. It is your responsibility to check, proof read and sign off on our work.
Graphics and photographs
You should supply graphic files in an editable, vector digital format. You should supply photographs in a high resolution digital format. If you choose to buy stock photographs, we can suggest stock libraries. If you’d like us to search for photographs for you, we can provide a separate estimate for that.
HTML, CSS and JavaScript
We deliver web page types developed from HTML markup, CSS stylesheets for styling and unobtrusive JavaScript for feature detection, poly-fills and behaviours.
Browser testing
Browser testing no longer means attempting to make a website look the same in browsers of different capabilities or on devices with different size screens. It does mean ensuring that a person’s experience of a design should be appropriate to the capabilities of a browser or device.
We test our work in current versions of major desktop browsers including those made by Apple (Safari), Google (Chrome), Microsoft (Edge), Mozilla Firefox and Opera. We won’t test in other older browsers unless we agreed separately. If you need an enhanced design for an older browser, we can provide a separate estimate for that.
Mobile browser testing
Mobile browser testing using popular smaller screen devices is essential in ensuring that a person’s experience of a design is appropriate to the capabilities of the device they’re using. We test our designs in:
iOS : Safari, Google Chrome
Android: Google Chrome
We won’t test on Blackberry, Opera Mini/Mobile, specific Android devices, Windows or other mobile browsers unless we agreed separately. If you need us to test using these, we can provide a separate estimate for that.
Technical support & Hosting
We prefer to host your website on our server and your contract will include 1 years hosting and an agreed amount for each year after that. We will manage updates, backup etc and ensure to the best of our ability that uptime is as close to 100% as possible, In the unlikely event that the server fails we will not be responsible for any loss of income on your part. If you would like to host your site elsewhere we will provide a price for setting up the site, but once the site is live updates and management is entirely up to you.
We will review your server usage on a yearly basis and reserve the right to increase the charge based on the bandwidth or disk space use.
Search engine optimisation (SEO)
We don’t guarantee improvements to your website’s search engine ranking, but the web pages that we develop are accessible to search engines.
Changes and revisions
We don’t want to limit your ability to change your mind. The price at the beginning of this contract is based on the amount of time that we estimate we’ll need to accomplish everything you’ve told us you want to achieve, but we’re happy to be flexible. If you want to change your mind or add anything new, that won’t be a problem as we’ll provide a separate estimate for the additional work.
Legal stuff
We’ll carry out our work in accordance with good industry practice and at the standard expected from a suitably qualified person with relevant experience.
That said, we can’t guarantee that our work will be error-free and so we can’t be liable to you or any third-party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages, even if you’ve advised us of them.
Your liability to us will also be limited to the amount of fees payable under this contract and you won’t be liable to us or any third-party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages, even if we’ve advised you of them.
Finally, if any provision of the contract shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from the contract and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.
Intellectual property rights
Just to be clear, “Intellectual property rights” means all patents, rights to inventions, copyright (including rights in software) and related rights, trademarks, service marks, get up and trade names, internet domain names, rights to goodwill or to sue for passing off, rights in designs, database rights, rights in confidential information (including know-how) and any other intellectual property rights, in each case whether registered or unregistered and including all applications (or rights to apply) for, and renewals or extensions of, such rights and all similar or equivalent rights or forms of protection which subsist or shall subsist now or in the future in any part of the world.
First, you guarantee that all elements of text, images or other artwork you provide are either owned by your good selves, or that you’ve permission to use them. When you provide text, images or other artwork to us, you agree to protect us from any claim by a third party that we’re using their intellectual property.
We guarantee that all elements of the work we deliver to you are either owned by us or we’ve obtained permission to provide them to you. When we provide text, images or other artwork to you, we agree to protect you from any claim by a third party that you’re using their intellectual property. Provided you’ve paid for the work and that this contract hasn’t been terminated, we’ll assign all intellectual property rights to you as follows:
You’ll own the website we design for you plus the visual elements that we create for it. We’ll give you source files and finished files and you should keep them somewhere safe as we’re not required to keep a copy. You own all intellectual property rights of text, images, site specification and data you provided, unless someone else owns them.
We’ll own any intellectual property rights we’ve developed prior to, or developed separately from this project and not paid for by you. We’ll own the unique combination of these elements that constitutes a complete design and we’ll license its use to you, exclusively and in perpetuity for this project only, unless we agree otherwise.
Displaying & promoting our work
We love to show off our work, so we reserve the right to display all aspects of our creative work, including sketches, work-in-progress designs and the completed project on our portfolio and in articles on websites, in magazine articles and in books. Referral is key to our business so we’ll also add a link back to us in the footer of your site.
Payments & Payment schedule
We’re sure you understand how important it is as a small business that you pay the invoices that we send you promptly. As we’re also sure you’ll want to stay friends, you agree to stick tight to the payment schedule outlined in your quote / estimate.
Where we accept deposit payments these are non-refundable. We reserve the right to suspend or cancel your account and any products or services associated with it in the event of non-payment. We expect payment in a reasonable time frame, past 90 days from invoice date we will automatically suspend your services and look to recover monies and accumulated costs. Web hosting, domain name registration, and associated services are provided on an ongoing basis, usually yearly, and failure to pay renewal costs may result in the termination of your product or service. Where we include these services as part of an initial package you may expect ongoing charges to begin after the first year. Assuming you have met your obligations and payments, you may request a copy of your data or web design to transfer ongoing services to an alternate provider. We will charge a reasonable administrative fee for this.
But where’s all the horrible small print?
Just like a parking ticket, neither of us can transfer the contract to anyone else without the other’s permission.
We both agree that we’ll adhere to all relevant laws and regulations in relation to our activities under the contract and not cause the other to breach any relevant laws or regulations.
The contract stays in place and need not be renewed. If for some reason one part of the contract becomes invalid or unenforceable, the remaining parts of it remain in place.
Although the language is simple, the intentions are serious and the contract is a legal document under exclusive jurisdiction of English and Welsh courts.
