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Collection of stupid quotes made by clients during the Dot Com days.
tofslie.com — This is a great thread from 2000, archived from the old Design Forum site, Dreamless.
tofslie- 1979 diggs
- digg it
- springfish, on 10/12/2007, -6/+16Good times!
- arcooke, on 10/12/2007, -5/+47Good for the first 1/15th of the page.. the rest is a bunch of comments from 12 year old idiots trying to be funny.
Although that first fifteenth was good enough to digg. - WildTang3nt, on 10/12/2007, -6/+27The dot-com burst dominated my face.
- quomen, on 10/12/2007, -24/+1lol, I don't think i've secured a place in the land of geek.. I don't really get why they're stupid.
=_= - Markpdotcom, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Sadly, I think I've had clients say all these things to me at one point throughout my career! :(
- TheWorm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+25We need more glitter graphics and we need them now!
- seanalltogether, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Ah dear dreamless, we knew you when...
o8 - j4200, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12It does seem that as you read further down the thread, more and more it's just bad developers not knowing standard business practices. Alot of them just seemed to be not working with the client very well.
- ufia, on 10/12/2007, -8/+100"our web site doesn't load if I turn javascript off ... please fix this"
They call this a stupid quote? I call this a ***** bad design if the page can't display properly with javascript turned off. Spare me the 99% visitors use javascript nonsense. If the site displays as a blank page when the javascript/css/flash bloat is turned off in the visitor's browser, you're fired! - Jumba990, on 10/12/2007, -40/+3This is so sad:
This is a story I once heard about some helpdesk .. It isn't exactly a client quote and it's probably quite old, but I'll post it anyway..
_______________________________________
- Hello, how can we help you?
- Yeah.. erm .. well ..
My coffeecup holder has seem to be broken off.
- Ehm .. Coffeecup holder you said?
- Yeah, my coffeecup holder..
- Did you get that with your computer?
- Eeeh, Yes.
- What kind of computer do you have?
- An iMac.
- Hmmm ...
Could you maybe describe the holder?
- Well.. It says 40x ..
I mean = / .. - samnetwork, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Had by all.
- mikal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+39@ufia: Amen.
On the other hand, many of the quotes on the page shows why sales/customer relations should be "people persons" more than techies. When a client says something like "don't want it to look like a web page", you shouldn't think "idiot", you should find out what he is really trying to communicate. You might get a smug self satisfaction of laughing at clients, but it does not help you get their business. - dogshaft, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1Idiot #1: "It says I need flash player. I don’t want flash to be required on anything we do."
Idiot #2: "WHAT happen if a person does not want to down load Flash 8 to see the flash page?"
Why do people request and pay for Flash to be used if they don't want the other idiots using two year old versions of Flash to be troubled? - klaymen, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21@mikal:
i agree totally. the first quote on the page:
"So I'm working on this site and when I originally met with the guy he like drew out the front page as a big block and broke it into sections and told me where to put things (basically he was playing designer for me). So I do the front page and I try to make it look nice and sort of edgy. This is the feedback I got from them a few hours later.
"please follow original instructions. we don't want this page to look tricked out or computer generated..."
***** brilliant.
Can anyone beat this comment?
I seriously doubt it."
just do it like he ***** asked instead of trying to insert your own style, and there wouldn't be a problem. is this quote supposed to make fun of the client or the designer? - tensafefrogs, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1yes, those were the days :)
- Bleeblaow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10"CLient: We also need a logo for our new site Fast Friends.com ...
Us: So what words come to mind when you think about how your logo should look.
Client: Well it should be 'fast' and 'very friendly' ...oh, and maybe look like an octapus with tentacles stretching out'"
I can't stop laughing at this one. - sannm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5client: 'from my left eye to my right eye - what's that? you know, wideways...'
me: umm width
I almost fell out of my chair after reading that one - xBDVx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@Jumba990,
Dude, the first time I heard that joke I was using PRODIGY. Please, for all that is holy, stop telling that one. - mrfish, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Ahh, the days when we could get paid for giving a half ass'd effort. I miss those. That's why I am now training. :)
- scosol, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0"designers" haha
juggalos.
- arcooke, on 10/12/2007, -5/+47Good for the first 1/15th of the page.. the rest is a bunch of comments from 12 year old idiots trying to be funny.
- halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -3/+53Reminds me of a boss I had who referred to programmers as "Glorified Typists."
That was the same company where one of the sales reps signed a contract promising "An online calendar and e-mail system to emulate the look feel and functionality of Microsoft Outlook." This was a freebie due in two weeks.
The reps's logic?
"Well we have Outlook, can't we just put it online?"- robcornelius, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15A few years ago I was working on a website for a small recruitment company. I worked in the same office building so it was all more or less ok. A lot of the recruiters would pop round to see how things were getting on. One of the very blonde ones remarked "all you do is sit and type all day." I replied "all you do is sit and play minesweeper all day and ring your boyfriend". She was aiming to finish the intermediate level one day.....
- BobsYourUncle, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I walked into an interview for a 'programming' job, and the first thing the manager said was "Just so you know, I think programmers are useless".
The 'programming' job turned out to be tech support and front-desk work at a hotel.
- Nicolay77, on 10/12/2007, -4/+38Quote from mas, posted 11-01-2000:
"CEO: Well, we're a medical [INSERT MARKETING JARGON AND THE MARKETING VERSION OF "techno-babble" HERE], and we develop office billing software for private practices. However, we would like to put together a database-driven health tip encyclopedia delivered through an (exact words here) Adobe Flash Macromedia interface."
So this medical company could predict the future. Awesome.- jonathantneal, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14That's just what you do when lives are on the line.
- hotdamn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I am glad I wasnt drinking when I read this, ahhahaha
- igeoffi, on 10/12/2007, -5/+37Navillus | posted 11-17-2000 01:22 PM profile | | edit
Client: "I keep finding myself hitting the clear button instead of the submit button, and then the form clears out and I have to start all over again. Is there anything you can do to fix that?"
gotta love that- Undertoad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+46I agree with the client on that one. There is almost no call whatsoever for a "clear" button. Back in the day, early books on HTML would always put a clear button next to the submit button, because they wanted to show that the clear function was available. For usability, though, that's a mistake -- like putting the "fire missiles" button next to the "turn on headlights" button.
- BadgerUMD, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5If you read further, the person who wrote that quote says that the client wouldn't let them get rid of the "clear" button, but didn't want it to clear so fast ...
Pretty funny, actually
- thehans, on 10/12/2007, -3/+63"Put a Landlord hat on the Landlord" WTF? I have no idea what a landlord hat is? If anyone does point me in the right direction. I will wear it and collect rent at the apartment building next door.
- infekt, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13No one knows what a landlord hat is, that's why it's funny.
- crashflow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21ask the monopoly guy. he knows all about landlord attire. be sure to get the monocle.
- devboy00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Indeed, all the fashionable landlords are wearing top hats and monocles these days. 80)
- hdtvdust, on 10/12/2007, -8/+49The first one is ridiculous. So, this little prick decides that in HIS opinion it would looked better with an "edgy" feel, even though the client did not ask for it. then when hte client correctly says they want it how they said, he thinks that is ridiculous?
Guess what? MySpace users think that their sites are "edgy" too. That is why you don't do what YOU think looks cool unless the paying customer wants it.- CrimsonBlur, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10I know why you're being Dugg down, and it's because you made the mistake of mentioning MySpace in the comments for a design article, but your basic point is correct. If the client knows what they want it's a Godsend, and it sounds like that designer was just being a jerk and trying to push his design ideals onto them (which they obviously did not like).
Sometimes clients really do tell you to do things that are just a terrible idea and you know it will look like crap, but they won't budge. What you do is you do what they tell you, but you also come up with a few ideas that are better and pitch them, basically showing them that what they originally thought would be great isn't as good as what they could have if they used some of your ideas. Some clients are harder to deal with than others, but if you're a good designer and you can communicate well, they will eventually trust your judgment. - 91degrees, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4This was back in 2000 when web designers really weren't sure whether they were typesetters or designers, and neither were their customers. Half the clients would either send a rough sketch and be surprised when the website looked just like the rough sketch, or have extremely specific requests and find something completely different.
- CrimsonBlur, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10I know why you're being Dugg down, and it's because you made the mistake of mentioning MySpace in the comments for a design article, but your basic point is correct. If the client knows what they want it's a Godsend, and it sounds like that designer was just being a jerk and trying to push his design ideals onto them (which they obviously did not like).
- indorock, on 10/12/2007, -3/+33"our web site doesn't load if I turn javascript off ... please fix this"
*sigh*
actually a very VALID request, maybe not so in 2000 - pre-web standards days, before an emphasis was made on separation of behaviour from content and unobtrusive use of Javascript. Nowadays you cannot (and should not) deliver a website that depends on the availability of JS, unless the client explicitly OK's such a thing.- DCLXVI, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24I was about to comment on the same thing, there are few things that annoy me more than websites that lose all functionality when javascript is disabled.
Javascript should be a supplement, not a requirement. - wyrdness, on 10/12/2007, -12/+6I disagree. Very few web users even know what Javascript is, let alone how to disable it. It took me a few minutes to work out how to do it in Internet Explorer (Javascript isn't even mentioned in the options). All modern sites using AJAX (including Digg) won't work properly if Javascript is turned off. There really isn't any reason why anyone would need to disable it, apart from extreme paranoia.
- DCLXVI, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9@wyrdness
Digg works perfectly fine without javascript enabled, it might lose some of its flashiness but the functionality is still there.
Also, I would think that paranoia should be a natural thing in todays Internet world. Why should you allow untrusted sites to run potentially malicious code in your browser? Tools like http://noscript.net/ allow you to mark sites as trusted if you think you really need javascript, but will also keep you safe from xss exploits and general javascript security holes you might come across in your daily web wanderings. - wyrdness, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14@DCLXVI
I tried viewing Digg with Javascript turned off (in IE) before posting. You certainly lose the ability to digg comments up or down, so I would disagree with your statement that 'digg works perfectly fine'.
As I previously stated, no site built using AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) will work correctly with Javascript disabled. - samnetwork, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Hello? What about digg? Try and turn off Javascript here.
- bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I'm glad that they lampooned the person's javascript concerns in the second spot on the list, it saved me the time of having to bother with the rest of the article.
- soopertoll, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My Theory is that, people who haven't got javascript enabled these days:
- Wear all white socks in sandals
- Order their beer with a straw
- Smell funny
- Have tiny dogs
- Have Mullets
- Will fart in Elevators
- Drive friggin smarts !!! - indorock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's not about accommodating users that turn off JS intentionally through paranoia, it's about creating websites that are truly extensible across multiple platforms and devices. I'm sure most of us have surfed the internet on a mobile phone of PDA, and have come across sites that would not load due to use of frames, or javascript or other technologies/layouts that mobile browsers do not (yet) support. It's also not best practice to assume that a certain language is the de facto client-side scripting language to define behaviour. It's not impossible to imagine that a modified version of JS would emerge specially for mobile devices, or god forbid that Microsoft scraps Javascript support on their browsers and implements support for their similar (but not identical) JScript. The internet has grown way beyond the boundaries of the desktop/laptop, and will continue to do so. Websites must take that into account.
Of course this is all preaching to the choir if you are a professional web developer like me, but i guess not all diggers are. - reconfine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0how about the fact that you have to use javascript to make flash viewable in IE now eh? eh?
- DCLXVI, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24I was about to comment on the same thing, there are few things that annoy me more than websites that lose all functionality when javascript is disabled.
- DeskFlyer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15"I need more pesshht peesshht chuttt chutt papapapa on this animation"
Sorry, but that one had me giggling.- bilbravo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Ditto. Great quote, what was it ... an animation of someone shooting an uzi?
- CrimsonBlur, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Oh man, this is just classic! I've heard versions of just about all of these myself working on all sorts of projects. One thing though: I still get them constantly! Dot-com days? More like typical client behavior...
- MungoBBQ, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27I have to say, I think most of the comments seem like whining made by young web "talent" high on self-importance. It might be the passing of time until now, but I think we have come a long way since the year 2000, and a lot of those comments made by clients on that page actually make more sense today.
In the year 2000, web design people where so high and mighty and sure about themselves (myself included) that they never thought twice about the clients' actual needs or wants. If they thought something was cool, that was the way it had to be.
Today, most of them know better.- rebotfc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Agree, alot of the comments by the clients actually make sense and reflect modern web design thinking. Such as allowing a site to load without javascript and cross browser compatability. These were real world concerns even then but it seems the designers couldnt appreciate it at the time.
- CrimsonBlur, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5That's a good point, a lot of these do fall under that category. It's mostly things like this that really get to me:
"i want our side bar to look exactly like amazon's. oh, here i am gonna send it to you, just use it...and then maybe make it kinda pastel, i hear that's the new thing now, to make things look feminine.
I want the same font as useit.com uses, that guy really knows what he's talking about!!"
:) no kidding.
It's one thing for them to show you something and say they want something similar, but many people will insist you exactly copy another site and just change a couple things. That's a very hard position to be in. I've had a few heated discussions with clients about this very thing. What's the point in paying me to make you an original Web site if all you want to do is rip off other people's designs? - skinjester, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3that's a good point MungoBBQ, but I've found most clients are too close to their specific needs to knows what they want. So they'll say crazy things - no different than anyone in an unfamiliar setting - Research and education have to be a major part of managing any account. A little work up front, perhaps included like a trojan horse in promotional materials goes a long way. Like business cards with a list of numbered design "tips" (collect the entire set!), compelling & interesting content on your own website, or whatever.
- MungoBBQ, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I agree - there are a lot of times when clients are simply clueless. I just wanted to point out that we've reached more of an equilibrium with design/content/function these days, and that this is a *good* thing.
Designers are not meant to rule the world. If they did, we'd all be wearing black turtle-neck sweaters now. - DDoSAttack, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4@crimsonblur
"What's the point in paying me to make you an original Web site if all you want to do is rip off other people's designs?"
Because they're paying you to do it. What does it matter what they want with the money they pay? You're the developer not their accountant.
- aboyd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28Oddly enough, most of these annoying things no longer sound annoying to me. Nowadays, if a client asked for the original artwork because they didn't want to pay me to make changes, I'd say, "great!" Let them have it and screw it up. They'll come back when they break things, and even if they don't, I have other clients to focus on. And if a client asked me to change a photo ("put a landlord hat on the landlord") then I would. /me shrugs. I don't mind Photoshopping an image. And I don't mind making stuff up if the client isn't clear -- my contracts stipulate pay for extra revisions, so we can go around in circles a few times until we suss out what is right. And the multiple complaints about clients asking for things immediately ("if you can't deliver it today, how about first thing tomorrow morning" -- as if the developer would pull an all-nighter), I'd just tell them the date they could have it. If I lose 'em, I have other clients.
A lot of these complaints appear to be from people who never read "how to say no" or anything similar.
The artists complaining about the difficulties of animation -- mostly Flash these days solves it. But even still, one guy complained that he had to do 2 minutes of looping animation for a logo of someone exercising. And he bid as cheap as he could, but still was rejected as too high. Heck, meet the client where he/she is -- offer to do 2 frames, such as the person flat on their back, and then up in a crunch. Loop that. You can make even just 2 frames look cool, if you can take a "we meant to do that" approach and intentionally try to make it look good that way. It's a lot like those neon signs that have an outline of 2 pictures that it switches between, to give the sense of motion.
Basically, reading those client quotes, it felt like reading the complaints of 20-somethings starting out in their careers. They don't understand how to negotiate with the client. It's clear many of them don't even have signed contracts from the client, because some of the stories are about unspoken deadlines and unspoken payments -- which would never happen with a clear contract.
Of course, there ARE amusing things that clients say. One of the best ones I heard was when a person brought in some photos to put online. One photo was of the back of subject. The person asked the designer to "flip" the photo. So the designer did, thinking "maybe there is a wedding ring on the wrong hand, and if you flip it, it'll look like it's on the correct hand?" But no. The person came back, saw the flipped photo, and said, "no, you didn't FLIP it! If you FLIPPED it, I would be able to SEE HIS FACE!"
That kind of idiocy isn't just a negotiating tactic or being cheap -- that's someone who is genuinely stupid, and gets haughty about it. That's the kind of fun I'd like to read more about.- mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13i challenge you to define what a landlord hat is. it wasn't so much that the designer didn't want to photoshop an image, it's that who the ***** knows what a landlord hat is. i highly doubt the guy was looking for a trucker hat with the word 'landlord' across the front of it.
- aboyd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"i challenge you to define what a landlord hat is."
Yeah, I guess it's a little silly, but it doesn't matter, in my opinion. A good designer has a good contract that allows for back & forth. From my post: "I don't mind making stuff up if the client isn't clear -- my contracts stipulate pay for extra revisions, so we can go around in circles a few times until we suss out what is right." Let the client refer to a "landlord hat" -- it sounds a chance to bill the client for a few extra hours, so it doesn't have much strength as an outrageous client request. At least, not to me... but if you like it, awesome. I glad you found something amusing in that list of quotes. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Why did he not just ask the client wtf a landlord hat is.
- plagiats, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You said it all. 100% agree. Bravo.
- samnetwork, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This http://www.antiquemapsandprints.com/p-15001.jpg is a landlord with his hat on.
- adsoftheworld, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Have you guys heard of http://clientcopia.com/ This site is dedicated to such stuff!
- Scopitone, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32Hahahaha
"A recent client my company got.
Client: "We want a website that can play DVD quality video, but we don't want to use streaming video and the load time must be zero."
Designer: "That's impossible. Everything has a load time. DVD quality runs about 100 megs a minute."
Client: "We'll take our business elsewhere..." "- plagiats, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12yep, maybe a even more clever answer would have been "your requirements can not be matched with nowadays technologies. but let's see what options we have, for instance if you decide to accept a load time of 2 seconds (...)" or "Why is that you don't want to use streaming?". Discuss with your client, make him understand with normal words that it's impossible do act like a techie that says "no it's impossible" without even trying to understand the client's real needs. DISCUSS instead of calling people stupid.
Look, if you were the client you'ld get upset that an engineer just ruined your business idea by saying "it's impossible everything has a load time". The client doesn't understand why "everything has a load time". He doesn't have to. That's your job. Ultimately, the client wants his movies to play and visitors to enjoy. Your job is to make him come to something like http://video.google.com/ . If you just let him walkaway after your little techie speech, then I'm afraid to say YOU are the stupid one. - Klinky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is from 2000. People were lucky to have a decent 56K connection back then much less DSL or broadband. On an average 56K connection you'll get between 5 - 7KB/sec. So two seconds gives you about 10KB of space to work with. Full screen video that didn't stream in 10KB of space, good luck doing that with todays technology. Good luck doing it period. There is absolutely no way you could have DVD quality video play instantly without streaming. Even now with Google Video or YouTube you're buffering for maybe 5 seconds before the video plays. It's no where near DVD quality & even then the site gets choked up and you'll get stutter here and there.
Frankly when someone says something like that it sounds like the client wants the designer to make their business for them. I could say "I want a car that gets 100mpg, but also gets 0 - 60 in 3 seconds". Wow! Great idea, but it's impossible. Are you going to turn around and go "Well what about if you let us have 4 seconds instead of 3?". It's still impossible & is just not feasible.
- plagiats, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12yep, maybe a even more clever answer would have been "your requirements can not be matched with nowadays technologies. but let's see what options we have, for instance if you decide to accept a load time of 2 seconds (...)" or "Why is that you don't want to use streaming?". Discuss with your client, make him understand with normal words that it's impossible do act like a techie that says "no it's impossible" without even trying to understand the client's real needs. DISCUSS instead of calling people stupid.
- 91degrees, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25My favourite:
"Can't we make the text blink"
Clearly somebody just knew how to upset a web designer.- pinkfu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12If I had a penny for every time I was asked to make something blink, sparkle, "move around", etc. I could retire right now.
- tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You CAN make crap blink if that's what the client wants...
- Tiak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1On that note, will someone PLEASE explain to me why the hell the tag still works?... DIE already!!!
- joshua5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11binkybink | posted 10-23-2000 01:07 PM profile | | edit
client: you can cut out all this planning time i'm telling you we know what we want.
me: do you have all the documentation we need?
client: sure, just go to amazon.com, we don't want to reinvent the wheel, we just want that. - beatdown, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21"Dude, I got you a CD of clip art. Let's make this site look dope!"
Oh, man. That made me laugh at loud. Those were the good old days. I shake my head in amazement about the huge amounts of money that were pissed away. Flatscreen TVs in the reception, Herman Miller chairs, modular cubicles, scooters in the hallways. The Internet was the second coming of Christ. Business plan? What's that?
*poof*
And then it was gone.- SlvrEagle23, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4...except Google.
- vanadium77, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ah, god love Dreamless (where this compilation was saved from). A goldmine, indeed.
- RadiatedAnt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2my brain hurteded reading the thread.
- samnetwork, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Man you gotta turn it off first!
- xXAzraelXx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Internet ftw with PPLURR ^^
*poof* - samuelcotterall, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2One day clients will stop pretending they know about web design.
We are the ones who have studied it, we are the ones that do it for a living and we are the ones they are paying to do it.
It's as though every client is a 45 year old executive who once read a copy of .NET whilst he was waiting for a train. Then they want to take the project off your hands, host it on their own inadequate server, and maintain it themselves - at which point you have to take your name off it. One job I did, for a school, was ruined by 900px wide images and scrolling marquees - because my name was on it, it ended up in my Google search results and I couldn't get it removed.- DDoSAttack, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@samuelcotterall
So what you're saying is that since they are paying you they should have no say about what they want/feel with the site they are PAYING for? Nice attitude!
Here I've always thought that I was there for guidance and my ability to make what they want happen, not as the end all in decision making regarding design. How stupid of me.
The fact that you left your name on a website that a client screwed up is your fault. You shouldn't have had it on there to begin with... especially if you are worried about your "image" that is tied to that site. A better option (that you would have had more control over) would have been to have a linked thumbnail with a brief description of the site on your site. That way if they screw it up then you can remove the link/thumbnail, effectively not claiming responsibility for the site any longer. Also you have the benefit of not being directly tied to the now crappy site via a search engine ;) - saminct, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1"So what you're saying is that since they are paying you they should have no say about what they want/feel with the site they are PAYING for? Nice attitude!"
in some cases it's about professionalism. You don't have to be the all-dancing-and-singing-monkey all the time, especially if you can back it up with solid reasoning. - SlvrEagle23, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Back in high school, I slapped my name on every project that hit the web, certain that enterprising visitors would love the design and immediately contact me. I can safely say that absolutely never happened...not even once. Networking with friends-of-friends and offering to help out where I could led to many promising opportunities, and I wound up having a great time in the industry for a few years.
As DDoS said, the role of a designer or developer is a facilitator of the goals of the client. Think of it like any other tradeskill where you have an expansive knowledge on something from which others could benefit without knowing it themselves. A lot of the quotes that were giggled at on the posted forum thread involved a client saying something like, "we aren't paying you to be creative". What they don't realize is that this is actually quite common; a client with its image in mind already only pays you to facilitate that image into a web-friendly format. Of course, because you want money and you can collect it in cases like that without even having to be creative, you take jobs like that.
After so many years doing design, I decided to switch to an IT field for a delightfully selfish reason: somehow, in IT, most of my clients seem to think that projects take MORE work than they really do (for designers, they assume it takes 5 minutes), so they'll need it done by Friday and when it's finished Monday, cue the damn parade for the overproductive IT guy. Stretch that out over the course of a few years and all of a sudden, your IT champion has pushed your progress forward by half a decade just by effectively spending some of your dough. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I can be certain that the people I've worked with in IT have been so much more pleasant than the flocks of little redneck entrepreneurs I met as a designer.
- DDoSAttack, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@samuelcotterall
- livejamie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1http://duggmirror.com hopefully
- TobbisBlog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1http://www.duggmirror.com/design/Collection_of_stupid_quotes_made_by_clients_during_the_Dot_Com_days/
- TobbisBlog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1But great quotes ;)
- mobilitatis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10from http://clientcopia.com/
"Me: "You do realise this is the IT helpdesk you've called?" Client: "Yes, well it's the computer that's on fire." Me: "Good point."- 91degrees, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2So you told them it was a hardware problem?
- mrshonuff, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4I had a client recently ask me to print out each page of the site so they could have it in their booth at a trade show.
I said OK. Its not a huge site but it is still a lot of pages. I guess they didn't want to take a laptop.
They call me the next day and wonder why I didn't print out the page with the Contact Us form.
Maybe they thought they could have potential customers fill in the text fields at the show with a pen.- DDoSAttack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11So "every page" means all the pages except the one's that you feel are relevant, right?
- plagiats, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9maybe they wanted to show to mister-boss-from-LA that their website was well made with a contact form and everything. maybe they wanted to put the pages in some sort of book to see its evolution over time. It's not your business to juge, the client asks, the client should get!
- winnopeg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1"lavendermoon | posted 10-28-2000 03:48 AM profile | | edit
...After almost completing the site:
half-ass marketeer: oh, we forget to tell you, but we want to place some ad-banners on the homepage, so please leave some space for them
me: and you couldn't have told me that earlier. Implementing this will mean that we won't make the deadline (which was the day after) and besides that will f*** up the design as well.
ham: *pointing randomly at screen*
just put one here, here and here... that can't be much work, right?
me thinking: wish I could put one up your a**"
Best EVER, - kolywater, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7my favorite (well, except for the ***** landlord hat one):
After having published a demo site for a client:
Them: "Can you print out a copy of every page in the site and post it to us?"
Us: "Why??"
Them: "We need to fax a copy to our US office so they can have a look at it..."
wow. just... wow. - WorldGroove, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5*WorldGroove: "Cool, you got your VPN working. You can't map that network drive for read/write access until we add your Domain/Username to the Admin group of the server. It'll be awhile, since the dude that does it for us isn't here today."
*Client: "Oh! The COMCAST guy is coming to my house to see if he can speed up our internet. Can he give me access since that other guy isn't in today?"
*WorldGroove:"..............................................................................No." - plagiats, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1to me, most stupids are the so-called "designers" that though most of these quotes are stupid. get a life, you misunderstand your client or lack the clearness of mind to discuss choice with them !
when a client says "can the text blink?" that doesn't necessarily means a blink every half second link the tag would do. That can mean a fade-in-fade-out effect on a title for example (flash anyone?). When a client tells you he wants amazon bar + pastel colors and you find that "stupid", well hey, let me remind you that nowadays "web 2.0" overuse pastel colors ! You would have found stupid to put a "beta!" tag on the title of the site, now every starts up does that.
"HTML? What's that?"- saminct, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"when a client says "can the text blink?" that doesn't necessarily means a blink every half second link the tag would do. That can mean a fade-in-fade-out effect on a title for example (flash anyone?). "
Let me assure you that this was slightly different 7 years ago. Anyhow, "can the text blink" sounds by default a really bad idea:P - plagiats, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2saminct : My point is your job as a designer is to understand why the client wants the text to blink and how to achieve his goal. If the goal is to make the text a must-see, it is your job to discuss with the client about having a box around it or putting a background color or anything and to explain him why half-second-blinking text isn't readable. If he still wants it, give it to him. Anyhow, it's not because it's a bad idea that the quote is "stupid". If you qualifies as stupid such requests, you'll end up with a client that will not say what he really has in mind (being afraid to look stupid) and that won't be satisfied.
PS : can't believe digg cutted half of my comment because there was a "inferior" sign in it ! - Tiak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The point was it's stupid because clients insist upon things that are almost always bad design and against everything the designer has learned.... Asking for sparkling, blinking, or animated gifs is like asking a cook to spit in your food.
- saminct, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"when a client says "can the text blink?" that doesn't necessarily means a blink every half second link the tag would do. That can mean a fade-in-fade-out effect on a title for example (flash anyone?). "
- comradeTJH, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3What's wrong about this message?
"our web site doesn't load if I turn javascript off ... please fix this" - esteban, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9"Can you make that logo chrome? Or like use that emboss effect so it looks metal?"
This guy was just ahead of his time, web 2.0 brought us all of this and more. I bet he would have loved the reflection effect. - Undertoad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1From my own days:
Client: We'll need a full e-commerce system to sell all of our stuff, hooked into our back end, along with hooks into the front page; and we'll have to sell wildly varied items with no item numbers and a database of items developed by someone else and we don't know anything about merchant accounts and we want a complete reporting module for all the financials.
Me: OK, It will cost about $15,000.
Client: What!? But a friend of mine did the e-commerce page for the Folk Festival in three days!
--
Client: You fired my salesperson and she is a friend of mine. I'm royally pissed, on her behalf. I'm going to try to use any flimsy excuse to scuttle the project.
Me: Just to let you know, your friend hasn't gotten her commission, and won't until the project is completed and paid for in full.
Client: I didn't say we wouldn't finish it and pay for it. - woody24, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2nothing new. I hear these almost daily. But the one thing I found out is that you can actually tell the client what will work and what doesn't. You don't need to play lab rat. You get paid to be the designer. So be one. But there are those times when the client doesn't listen, and then you have to do exactly what they want. Suck it up, and move on.
- valpal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If you cannot emboss logos leave the web alone. Its not for you. You have to emboss logos to monetize traffic - didn't you frikn know that?
- vastrightwing, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1If you work for a client, please learn to listen to the client and take the time to understand what they want. This is why they hire you. If you think you know better than the client, then it's up to you to make your client trust your judgment, not the other way around.
- Flamekebab, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1If the client wants animated widgets all over the place, garish colours and other assorted hideous crap, I'd be more likely to refer them to MySpace and walk away.
- chimpadink, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1well you see..the internet is this series of tubes...
- inajeep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Some of those quotes are still going on today. I had/have a client who wanted a song to play in the intro to his site, and all the time. It was as construction company.
Why did he want the song playing that had nothing to do w/ his company? Because he liked the song. - bfaulk04, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Those are all from 2000 or earlier, and even though 90% of these are still applicable, I'd HATE to see what they'd look like if they were from recent times.
- warchant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I could've sworn these quotes were from 2006
*sigh* - JohnTheLutheran, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"BEN. OH MY GOD. i LOVE the website you designed for us! it's AB-SOLUTE-LY brilliant and it looks FAAAABULOUS!.. but can i suggest a minor change? you think we could change the colors of the graphics? maybe make them more lighter? and maybe put the logo on the left side instead of the right? and the color of the text is perfect but we need it to be a little bit darker. is that easy to do?"
Why's that stupid? Surely this is the sort of perfectly-reasonable aim - changing the appearance while retaining the same content, without having to edit thousands of pages individually by hand - that CSS was invented to cover.- tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Isn't this why we divorced content and style? Why we now use CSS instead of HTML?
- noodlez, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i think the point is that the customer loved it so much, but wanted to make large design changes, thereby turning it into something different from what the customer originally loved so much.
- chris_moritz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1One of my old favorites. Lovely to see it again in all it's glory. *sigh
- 91degrees, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"the general concensus amoung clients is that they are your only client :)"
If you can get them to believe that, and continue believing that it's a good thing. It means you're being attentive to your clients' perceived needs. - simmux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've heard many of these, as a web designer. Probably most of them.
Clients used to "paper" are just too far away from the understanding of the difference between inch and pixel and from getting the sbtleties of flash, video, images etc on the web... It's our job to help them understand and be patient. They pay us for this relationship (sorry if it sounds wierd :-).
Our clients could make a similar list about our requests concerning their job/products/services... - Sundownvf111, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"more fonts. use more fonts!"
- Nickerz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I had a memorable incident with a company im currently doing a lot of work for. While discussing the backend of their site, I mentioned that it was a MySQL database, pronouncing it exactly as it is read. For 2 reasons, you sound like a doushbag when you say sequal and most people don't know what it is anyways. Well one of the wives of the owners chimes in "DON'T YOU MEAN SEQUAL!?" I really just wanted to hit her with a chair, but as I closed the deal on a $30K contract I decided instead to keep my mouth shut. It wouldn't be the last time she did something stupid, except the next time it happened I had a contract, so I did hit her with a chair figuratively. When I explained I needed old bank statements and some other relevant information to set up their credit card processing online (which I was routing through my account as a favor to them in the mean time, violating my TOS for them) she refused and said she never heard of anyone taking so long to get it done. Now if I was working with a reputable bank and service this would be true, but they insisted I worked through a bank with 2 branches. This is a complete mess, because a bank that small in turn routes it through another bank because they don't have the resources to setup their own merchant processing service. Long story short she tries to call me out on it in front of the owners and say she'll do it herself. I said great and moved on to the next topic at hand. When she asked me at the end of the meeting if I still wanted the papers, I replied with "no, your doing that remember?" Almost 2 monthes later she asked me to complete it for her, which she had been struggling with. I had them up in 5 minutes, the look on her face I will remember till the day I die. I just wanted to yell OWNED at her face, but again... I decided sheepishly to keep my mouth shut.
- Tourney3p0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hah, you got owned by the owner's wife.
- jacobdehart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3dreamless is dead, long live dreamless
- esperoboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2and very sad thing is, this is not really about 2000... It very much applies NOW.
I tried every possible method to educate client before project starts. But no effect... dumb people stays dumb. - hotinhurr, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0Oh no...techie humor
- trshtehdsh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0I used to work in a college computer lab doing website for the clubs/organizations on campus. It was always awesome when someone would come in and want to do their own website. The webmistress would ask them what they knew about doing websites, and usually the reply was "oh i've been doing it for years. I use Front Page." We always gave them access to their web space, but you can bet we had some good laughs at the crap they would inevitably upload.
One unfortunate 'team member' claimed she was master of all that was Dreamweaver. Then asked how to change the link color from blue to something else (she was the only web team member that was ever fired.) (not entirely relevant, but i felt like sharing.) - BobsYourUncle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm confused by one thing about the comments. Everyone writes rates like 0/hour, or they charged 00 or something. Are they using it in the sense of $0.00, or as a placeholder (like x dollars). Anyone know? Or figure it out? They seem to be used both ways, so now I'm confused...
- tofslie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They took out the real figures to avoid sharing private info.
- Tiak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hmm, seems like it was done relatively inconsistently after the fact:
sisko007 | posted 10-25-2000 09:14 PM profile | email | edit
How about this one....
"Umm... we don't really have the funds to pay you for the work you did..."
This after driving 2 hours each way for 4 days then being available for changes/updates
for the next couple of days. On top of that I heard radio spots for the site on a nationally syndicated radio show.
I know this is not the forum for this but does anyone have any tips on how I can get them to pay me??? It's about 00 worth of work.
thanks,
//sisko007
P.S. Great topic!!! Hours of laughter...
vena | posted 10-25-2000 09:16 PM profile | email | edit
hire a lawyer, sue their asses. 5.2k is beyond small claims. chances are you can get a bit more than the originak 5.2k sum
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