touchscreen kiosk updating and billing
by Chris Blair
on
Apr 4, 2009 at 1:37:36 am
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
Re: touchscreen kiosk updating and billing by Bouke Vahl on Apr 4, 2009 at 8:41:55 am
Perhaps it sounds strange, but:
The higher hour rate of a programmer, the cheaper he is.
Meaning:
A good coder works way faster than a bad one.
He also has a huge toolbox with code to re-use.
He makes his projects in a way they are easy to alter.
(eg standard behaviours that do not have to be modified to perform another action)
And if he's a nice guy, he gives you the open code with good documentation so you could make these changes yourself.
From what you describe, your coder is not a good one. It's of course impossible for me to judge this, there are always two sides of a story. But doing the entire project from scratch sounds like a 4 hour job to me. (That is, 1.5 hour coding/testing, 2.5 hour talking with the client, make changes and other stuff).
Do you have the open .dir files? If so, i would like to see them.
Bouke
http://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pro's
Re: touchscreen kiosk updating and billing by Chris Blair on Apr 4, 2009 at 4:23:42 pm
We don't have the .dir files. The client has repeatedly asked for them (through me as the go between) and he has never provided them, citing copyright...which is his right, but certainly not good business on a project this small and simple.
He does very good work, but I have no way of knowing if he's fast, slow, good or cheap. He charges $100/hour which seems pretty standard in our part of the country.
I will say it took forever in the original programming to get the video section to work properly. We must've gone through about 7 or 8 versions before he could get it to display properly on the client's touchscreen/LCD combination. In his defense, he didn't have the exact hardware at his shop to test it on, but there was nothing unique or unusual about the client hardware, and once correctly programmed, it worked on just about any combination of monitors, including just displaying it on a pair of cheap LCD monitors for computer use. Keep in mind this is an entire informational kiosk with about 20 sections and each menu section has multiple options to call information. What's being updated is ONLY the video section, which is ONE menu page where you click on an icon to start the video, then can control it with standard play, pause, ff, rewind, stop buttons. That's it.
On your guestimate on time. Based on what you list, I would say it should take even less time. We do ALL the talking with the client and provide ALL the assets and explicit directions for the work. On the last update, he literally didn't have to spend ANY time discussing the changes outside of 2 or 3 emails, there were no phone calls, and no revisions as the first delivery of the update worked fine. Everything was extremely straightforward and we were that explicit and thorough in what we provided.
The controls for the videos don't change, the formats for the videos don't change, all we're doing is adding a couple of videos and changing the layout of the icons you touch to start the video. The video controls didn't even move, they're still at the bottom of the touchscreen menu. You just click the video you want to start, then control it with the player controls.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
www.videomi.com
Re: touchscreen kiosk updating and billing by Bouke Vahl on Apr 4, 2009 at 4:56:30 pm
ah,
The way you describe it now, i'll take back my 1.5 hour to do it from scratch.
Not working with the correct hardware is difficult.
From what you descrive, the video comes from a DVD asset.
This is only supported with very few software DVD players, and even then it's unreliable as hell...
(Personally i would have opted for Quicktime, since the target machines are customizable)
BUT, he should have told you so.
I would not accept more than one or two hours at his rate for changes like this. Talk to him and work it out.
And get some other quotes.
If you send me specs and perhaps some artwork, i'm happy to give you a quote as well. And keep in mind, i'm from the expensive part of the world. There are REALLY GOOD coders in India that work for a quarter of my rate... (But are quite busy most of the time, since you're not the only one who has discovered that)
The world is small with Internet, you can hire a coder anywhere.
But again, work it out, and look around for other coders.
Bouke
http://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pro's
Re: touchscreen kiosk updating and billing by Chris Blair on Apr 4, 2009 at 6:17:52 pm
There has been no problem with the DVD files throughout. We discussed this at length during the project's initial development and the programmer actually preferred DVD files using a specific software DVD player. He'd used the setup on other installations which we had an opportunity to see and test prior to hiring him.
We simply made sure the correct software DVD player was installed on any test setup. So that's been a non-issue.
But your time estimates are on par with what I would think it would take to update this one menu and section of the kiosk. 7 hours is just excessive in my opinion.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
www.videomi.com
Re: touchscreen kiosk updating and billing by Michael Hancock on Apr 5, 2009 at 3:53:04 am
If you ever need another coder, definitely consider Bouke though. I'm familiar with his work through the online Avid community. His software has been a great asset there and he is well respected in those circles.
Michael
-------------------------------
I'll be working late.
Re: touchscreen kiosk updating and billing by Chris Blair on Apr 6, 2009 at 12:41:52 am
Thanks...we'll definitely keep him in mind. But on this project, we don't even have access to the .dir files. So he'd have to build the entire thing from scratch, which is a job that would likely take 75-100 hours.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
www.videomi.com
Re: touchscreen kiosk updating and billing by Bouke Vahl on Apr 6, 2009 at 7:16:26 am
eeer, Chris, dude...
Including finding out how touchscreen works,
i'll estimate it at 7.5 to 10 hours to build it from scratch.
This is EXACTLY what director was ment to do when it was developed.
But Director has evolved a bit, and can do way more than this.
Have a look at my site. The products there are made with Director.
That includes reading / writing binary data, 422 serial control of VCR's, custom hardware interfaces, video conversion etc..
2 years ago I've worked on a project for Avatar, (new James Cameron movie, still in post production)
That was automated conversion of video assist SD NTSC AVI with pulldown to 24 fps HD AVID codec, including pulldown removal, timecode / reelname, as well as speeding up the audio to stay in sync. (23.976 to 24 fps), all had to run under command line control of a pipeline system. And Director could do this.
That took about 100 hours, mainly research and creating specs, as we started when the hardware for shooting wasn't even working.
Bouke
http://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pro's
Re: touchscreen kiosk updating and billing by Chris Blair on Apr 6, 2009 at 11:02:16 pm
Yes...impressive stuff. On this particular deal we're just tying to get the client's system updated as quickly and easily as possible with a price they're more comfortable with. They just don't want to pay $1000 every time they want to add a video to the kiosk...and I don't blame them.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
www.videomi.com
