The What’s What and Who’s Who
I don’t believe in over-complicated legal jargon for documents like this: a gold standard is something clear, fair, and human, so I’ll give that a try!
True North Web Design, “me” and “I” are all the same thing in law: me.
“You”, “your” or “the client” or “customer(s)” refers to you.
What I Sell
What I sell falls into three broad categories:
- Bespoke websites – tailored to the you (the client)
This is a mix of digital product and digital service. I provide you with a website at the end that is yours, but we consult and communicate on features and design during its planning and creation which is a service. Payments are made in stages, and are non-refundable. - Template websites – designs I make independently, and sell as pre-made websites to customers
This is a digital product sold to you as a series of files. Included in the price is a one-time setup service where I put your text, images, and colours into the site to customise it to you. Hosting is not included. Hosting, and further support or customisations come via Addons or my Care, Hosting & Maintenance plans. - Care, Hosting & Maintenance Plans – services like hosting, security hardening websites, and adding or updating things on the website.
These are ongoing, repeated services performed and billed on a monthly basis. They come in variable tiers based on your desired level of service, the details of which are outline on the service page itself.
Uniqueness of Bespoke Work
Bespoke client projects are created exclusively for each client and are never resold as templates.
Like all designers, I draw on a consistent design language including patterns, components, and visual techniques across different projects. What makes each bespoke site unique is how those elements are combined, tailored, and applied to your brand.
By this I mean that I will use red buttons on many sites but only yours will say “Contact [Your Name]”, or sticky headers on many sites but only yours will have your business logo in it, etc. Uniqueness is not in parts, but in composition.
Compatibility, Reliability and Stability:
No websites are guaranteed to work with all plugins or themes except those declared in their descriptions, or my communications with you.
All sites are designed to be as streamlined as possible to reduce the risk of failure at any level. This is not a guarantee that nothing will go wrong. Much like cars, eventually something breaks. But they are intentionally designed to be as resilient to this as possible while still providing all the functionality you want out of them.
All sites are also designed to work properly on all devices to the best of my ability. I do not own every electronic device in the world and some older, obscure, or outdated hardware may present problems, but for the vast majority of modern electronic devices there should be no problems.
Some devices with unconventional screen sizes may experience awkward layouts as web design is done to the dimensions of a few standard screen sizes with some error margin either way. But for example, an image can only squash so far before it looks awkward, or a text paragraph that was designed to be the same height as a picture on one screen may be compressed and display slightly taller as a result on narrower screens. This can’t be 100% prevented on every screen size in the world, but every effort goes into making my sites as responsive as possible on common screen sizes.
Support:
Support is limited unless purchased as an addon. Each care plan is tailored to common needs, offering the best value between service and cost. Out-of-plan support is always available as an Addon.
Bespoke builds include three rounds of collaborations and revisions, and template builds include the one-off setup where I add your text, images, and brand colours to your site. Any other work, unless covered by a Care Plan, is subject to my Addons.
Your Site and Ownership:
You are entirely at liberty to change your site in any way at will. Doing so may break something, but you own your site – you don’t need to ask my permission and I don’t have any control over how you use it (except within the confines of criminal law but that goes without saying).
Your ownership refers to the final product of the design in its totality. Individual elements do not become your unique property unless they were yours to begin with. This is quite hard to clarify but for example, if you had a brand logo made for your company, you own that. But if I used a hover effect on a circle button for your site, neither the hover effect nor the circle shape of the button are then owned by you. Your site as a whole, though, is – I cannot copy your homepage wholesale and reuse it elsewhere.
Responsibility for Breakages and Errors:
Breakages and errors as a result of any DIY work, or the intervention of another (such as a friend, employee, or third party developer, etc) won’t be covered by the care and maintenance plans – they’re insurance against random and unforeseen tech problems.
Issues caused by my own mistakes will be remedied by me, at no extra cost.
Liability and Limitations:
I work only with tools and providers that I personally trust. The extent of that trust is typified by the fact that I use the same things on your sites that I use on my own, from tools to hosting.
Despite my care in this measure, I cannot be responsible for things out of my control. If the tools I use break at the hands of their own developers, or the hosting service I use goes down, I will do everything in my power to inform you as soon as I am aware, and solve the problem, but I ultimately have no control over either of them. Loss of revenue or traffic (or SEO, or other indirect losses) as a result of this will not be my fault.
I take reasonable measures to ensure the safety and resilience of your data, including again using trusted tools, and offering varying care plans covering different frequencies and types of backups. Despite this, I also cannot be held responsible for data loss as a result of third party failure. I have gone as far as I reasonably can to ensure it never happens and that is the best I can do.
Security is something taken very seriously, and comprehensive measures are taken to mitigate risks from this, including high-quality hosting, locked down file permissions, firewalls, two-factor authentication, bot traffic mitigation and login page masking. I treat security with gravity and bolster this with best-practises around my own activities (not visiting shady sites or uploading unfamiliar files to sites, etc) and also ensuring data minimisation across all the sites I control in compliance with GDPR. Despite all of this, no security system can account for human error. Where that error is not mine, and is not reasonably foreseeable, I am not to be held at fault. I will do all that I can to help you mitigate the loss/damage to your site subject to our arrangements regarding my involvement in care and maintenance for your site. Help beyond plans is available, subject to my own availability, as an Addon.
Lastly, errors causes by the client remain the client’s responsibility. I am happy to help diagnose and fix these as Addon services but any damage caused by them is similarly not my responsibility.
I can, like anyone, only be responsible for what I control.
Support Channels and Recourse:
Different support tiers have access to different levels of communication. Support channels are e-mail, text, and telephone call depending on which plan you are a member of.
All clients have my email address and can expect replies in a timely fashion: for those on the Essentials plan, within 5 working days; for those on the Advanced plan, within 48 hours, and for those on the Premium plan, within 24 hours.
Premium clients also have access to my phone number, for use only in emergencies and subject to reasonable fair-use.
Clients not with me on a support plan, but who previously hired me (for example if I built your site but you are doing your own thing regarding maintenance/managing it yourself) are welcome to reach out too. Support for you will be a pay-as-you-go Addon, in accordance with the pricing on my Addons page at the time of your inquiry.
Communication Etiquette:
Like everyone else in a service role, it is not my duty to tolerate harassment or abuse and nor will I. Communication will be respectful and humane at all times. Repeated, or egregiously vexatious forms of harassment or abuse will result in the termination of service permanently from the natural end of the next billing cycle. No refunds are offered in such cases. Any requests for data in line with the law (such as GDPR) will be honoured and any files you own (such as those to your website) will be given to you at or close to the time of the termination, and at that all interactions between us shall cease.
Experimentation and Trials:
There may be some cases where a customer contacts me with an obscure or otherwise different sort of request for a website. I enjoy a challenge and if it is agreeable to you, would be happy to come to a mutual arrangement whereby I go and research or experiment to see if I can do whatever it is you’d like. This arrangement would be paid work, to cover my time (and, if necessary, any tools) and would, as is predictable in the nature of this sort of inquiry, come without any guarantees as to results.
We’ll discuss details before any agreement is made but this is just to re-affirm that I will do my best to solve your problem, I will report my findings and ideas back to you, and that as with any other work – once it has been done, payment is non-refundable.
Goodwill
As a courtesy, but not a legally binding condition, if a support task crosses over into a holiday I will try and take it with me and complete it for you, but understandably I will have less availability. That includes ‘going away’ holidays, and at home ones. Sometimes this won’t be possible though, for example in the event of an offline camping trip.
In the same spirit of a gesture but not a contract, where it’s reasonable to do so (for example if we’ve recently spoken or there is projected work on the near horizon) I will endeavour to inform you of absences in advance.
Reasonable and fair use are hard terms to define but I think any right thinking person understands intuitively what they mean. Repeatedly calling late at night, spamming emails all through the day, and escalating trivial issues just to get them seen to more quickly are all examples of things that would be an abuse of fair use.
As a yardstick, if you would find it annoying or disrespectful if it was done to you, then don’t do it to me.
I want to provide the best service I can. I am trustworthy, I don’t want to let you down, and I get great satisfaction out of helping you to thrive in what way I can. I’m already on your side. But there is only one of me and I can’t be everywhere at once. I have my own life too. I’ll do my best by you, but please be reasonable, patient, and humane too. It works better for all of us that way. 🙂