I had a great idea for a website feature, but I have no idea what the cost of development would be. Hopefully someone can give me a ballpark estimate.

I am thinking of a river with element icons (rapids, camp site etc.) that are positioned on the river design background. Users could click on the element icon and a popup window (popup iframe maybe...something sleek) would display videos and photos of the site.

The idea was inspired by this:

Click and Play with a Canadian River | The Big Wild (http://www.thebigwild.org/soundboard)

Any idea of the difficulty + cost of this project?

Thanks

Adrian

You could likely do it as a looped video background for the river using HTML5 (or as Flash with a fallback to a still image for iPads/iPhones) and superimpose graphic elements over it. If I were quoting it based on my current rates, including some branding, icon design and video compression, I would estimate about $4000 for the site (assuming you're not talking about 40+ icons full of content). But you'll find everyone's rates different... someone might do it for $800 while others will do it for $10000. It all depends how complex they think it is based on their skills and methodology.

A7

Hey there Adrian.

As A7 mentioned, price will vary with who you hire.
It's also hard to quote right now, as the following items can make a big difference:
Would it be built as a standalone feature which would be incorporated into a another site? Or a stand alone site - if so, how big?
How about the design? Icon's being a big one (if they all had to get made).
How much content is there? and who's responsible for it?
What level of update ability is required?
etc..
It's hard to ballpark without those questions being answered.
If I had to guess right now I'd say $2000-6000

As for the concept & implementation itself, I wouldn't use flash (don't care for flash much).
I'd likely use jquery (with appropriate plug ins). The implementation itself seems straight forward.
I see the creative being the bigger hurdle.

Hope this helps. Any more question just let me know.
Cheers!
N.

That's about right.

I would encourage you though, either see it through on a pro level, don't cheap out on this and end up with a major cheese arsed flash crap. You're better off simplifying and not using flash or similar and pissing off your web visitors.

Another member PM'd me with some great ideas. Also, thank you to you guys for commenting. I really appreciate your insight!

don't cheap out on this and end up with a major cheese arsed flash crap.

Amen.

just trying to prevent anymore bad flash out there :)

Of course we're in for a tidal wave of horrendous javascript/canvas html 5 nonsense, but maybe I'll strike it rich and live on an island where there's no internet by then. :)

just trying to prevent anymore bad flash out there :)

Of course we're in for a tidal wave of horrendous javascript/canvas html 5 nonsense,

Ah, the truth! Finally, the recognition that there is going to be just as much visually, aurally and conceptually egregious crap out there under HTML5 as there is under Flash. Flash may have technical issues but it is not directly responsible for its own abuse. Bad content has been around since before the <blink> tag and will go on ad nauseum.

Ah, the truth! Finally, the recognition that there is going to be just as much visually, aurally and conceptually egregious crap out there under HTML5 as there is under Flash. Flash may have technical issues but it is not directly responsible for its own abuse. Bad content has been around since before the <blink> tag and will go on ad nauseum.

that's pretty much what I've tried to say for some time, while several heaped scorn on me as some kind of flash evangelist. Fools :)

Ironically, quite a few well known developers are finding the html 5 canvas performance on iphone ridiculously bad. I seeing a future when the abuse of technology moves into the arena. Yes it started with the blink tag, the scrolling text, and then the almighty animated gif.

But hey video runs better! Thank god for small miracles. :)

that's pretty much what I've tried to say for some time, while several heaped scorn on me as some kind of flash evangelist. Fools :)

Ironically, quite a few well known developers are finding the html 5 canvas performance on iphone ridiculously bad. I seeing a future when the abuse of technology moves into the arena. Yes it started with the blink tag, the scrolling text, and then the almighty animated gif.

But hey video runs better! Thank god for small miracles. :)

Had a client try to talk me into using a <marquee> last week... >shudder<

marquee. I was trying to remember what that tag was.

In 1998 we were simply excited to get anything to move on the page.

just trying to prevent anymore bad flash out there :)

Of course we're in for a tidal wave of horrendous javascript/canvas html 5 nonsense, but maybe I'll strike it rich and live on an island where there's no internet by then. :)

Totally, and I appreciated that. Friends don't let friends use flash. :)
Flash really did cheaply enable people to make crappy cheese.
Which wasn't directly flashes fault, but that aside I still don't like it.
I'm also worried once html5 is standard that we're in for a whole new batch of cheese.

As for the idea of striking at rich and retiring to an island. That doesn't work. ;) It never works, 6 months top and you'll be back. People can't stay out of the game. :)

Of course we'll have plenty of cheese, I'm already seeing a large number of javascript libraries being posted.

I do do a lot of really high end flash sites, in fact I just started working on a very major 3d one. There's a very good reason to use it in this case.

When I do flash sites, I know what I'm doing, I do my best to ensure I don't tick anyone off, make sure I make good use of the technology. I agonize over the details, and if I do do something that wasn't a good idea, I make sure not to repeat that. I was in a meeting today with a big company, and I nearly talked them out of it for some web stuff, though it's perfect for some external presentations they have. The difference is flash is, a very capable application development platform that has matured for some time, as3 is extremely powerful. But mostly, the development platform, is great to work in. I'm glad adobe had their ass spanked on how crappy their plugins have performed particularly, on the mac.

Flash isn't going anywhere, it'll evolve as it always have, though it'll likely have to make some interesting turns along the way. Developers need to stop making those crappy flash stuff, and know when to not use it. That's the biggest problem. Horrible navigation is my number one peeves with flash, if I can't figure how to get somewhere in 2 seconds because of some stupid flash thing someone thought was cool, I'm adios. I'm on another website.

For video, both technologies are great. If you're just playing a straight video, why use flash? But if you need all the capabilities flash offers with video, well, it's great.

Just some sanity.