touchscreen kiosk updating and billing

We've done informational kiosks with menus on touchscreens that trigger informational content on larger LCD screens. We typically do the menu design, writing and production, and we hire freelancers to do the Director programming.

On one job, the client requested that several menu items be easy to update, so by by simply changing a few .jpg images, that particular information would update.

On another part of the system, there's a menu to lauch and control videos. The initial installation had 3 videos, and last fall, the client wanted to add one. We re-designed the one-page menu and prepped the new video which was produced by a third party (it needed some stuff edited out of the open and close). All this took about two hours: the time to find and restore the project, trimming the video, outputting the DVD content, and the time to re-do the menu layout. Our charges were about $200.

The programmer quoted 5-7 hours to re-do the programming for this one menu. That seemed high to me but the client ok'd it and we proceeded. All told, we billed the client $1,000 for the update, $700 of which was the programmers charges (we marked it up to $800 for the time to coordinate everything).

Long story short, the client wants to update the video page again and thinks the last go round was too expensive. I tend to agree that it shouldn't take 7 hours to re-program 1 menu page that calls and controls 4 separate DVD videos. The entire info kiosk has about 20 menu pages with various content, and the original programming fee was $10,000. By that standard, it averaged roughly $500 per menu page to do the original programming from scratch, although the video page obviously had more to program than most other pages did.

Does 7 hours of work sound excessive to update one menu with that controls 4 videos, considering the programmer has already worked through it once before with 3 videos?

I'm trying to get ammunition to go back to the client and say..."this is what it costs." Or...yes...the last time was a little excessive and we should ask the programmer to do it in less time.

The new video menu pages will go from 4 to 6 videos. We'll again update the visual interface and hand off EVERYTHING the programmer needs on the graphic side, including all images already sliced up and ready to build from.

Opinions welcome here.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
www.videomi.com