I didn't have a good experience with Big Orange Planet. I'll summarize first - I hired for a large project, 3 months est. by them for completion, assurance and enthusiasm they could complete. Over 3 months LATE, they were asking about basic features, and asking for 2nd payment. They'd missed meetings , the design degraded, there were alot of programming bugs. They were unapologetic. In the end, 13 months later, I was delivered a broken, unuseable site w/out attempt to make things righted.
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I first contacted them around Dec.'06 about a large custom made website. All communications and work were done at a distance, as I lived in another state. I had been working on my e-commerce type web project for sometime with freelancers but since it was so large, time consuming, and also needed a good design it was too much for them. Big Orange Planet was a company and attractive to me from their web design.. not so much in their portfolio, but their cover page. It was funky enough that I thought they may be able grasp my design needs, therefore the feel, and then could (I was hopeful) also grasp the nature of the project overall.
They have nice work in their portfolio. I think these sites are mostly information/presentational sites, with a few number of pages, set to display info. about x company. My site was large and quite different, w/alot of custom backend programming, in addition to design. It also would be an infinite number of pages. They didn't suggest my site was more than they'd done before (said they'd done sites complicated like it & were quite capable), but did express my site would be great for their portfolio.
I submitted over a 35+ pg. document of requirements. Even after they said they could and wanted to do the project, I offered $500 for their time to complete a THOROUGH review of the requirements, and to create an outline and milestones of what we could expect during the project creation.
Too few facts and you don't get the picture. Too many and its gets overwhelming. However, they complimented me on my thoroughness and work on the project, stated my budget was realistic, expressed they have a different system than most studios and could keep overhead low, hiring workers as needed, rather than keep on full timers. Made sense to me.. It was to be 3 months max, for creation, design, full testing, set up and business launch. Later on, they would say they didn't understand the project ever, it was impossible, though 5 months into it (and 2/3 months late) they still requested a 2nd installment (rather than say - We don't have time for this, can't complete it afterall, or can't work with you, lets renegotiate terms or let you move on w/another company. They didn't offer a refund, or respect my time to any extent). Later, they'd suggested my project was several times costlier than they'd charged me as if they'd done me a favor.
They delayed the start. Design & programming delays often. They asked me about common any-site features such as sign in 6 ms. into (w/Contractual 3 mo. deadline passed. Said I should accept no matter how long it took. Said I wouldn't have been making $ yet anyway). Updates scarce, via email&actual work completed. Design degraded over time. Also used logo character I was not legally able to use (req. later to pay over $2k to original artist to use). Site had bugs( normal for any large site in devel.), however, one change would result in more issues. Pointing out troubles they once suggested I was being trivial ( items not chosen would show, items chosen may not show, pics & words would spread terribly across page. Tons more visual & functional wrong or missing. Not only was not custom, it didn't work as you would need a basic site to. Was completely unuseable). Months late, I was told they didn't have time to work on the project (&w/o apology or regret) yet wouldn't deliver the project "as is" so I could move on to another co (without my paying more). At one point, they said site was completed (when it still had obvious visual&funct. troubles-they'd clearly not looked at the site-they said they trusted their programmers ). But other times it was impossible or they'd never understood it all along. Yet, they'd requir'd& accepted that 2nd payment. I did refuse to pay 3rd, final payment.
I'm NOT upset they could not do the site. My grievance is they overbooked or couldn't actually do it & didn't admit it ,TURN it DOWN, or let me know ASAP/n allow me to go w/'nother co. They missed meetings, wasted my time, accepted over $10k, were unapologetic and never tried to make up for anything, from the first delay to the final delivery. They did say if I sued and won, I wouldn't get anything from them.
I did get the broken site delivered - the 3 m. proj.- 13 months later.
Except, no new companies would touch, being so problematic.
Their site sayse no ques. code, no drop standards.no produce ave.wrk.
My experience was unfort. read more
