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159 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+99"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! - 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.
- halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -3/+52Reminds 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?" - 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.
- 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. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+48The 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. - 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. - 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. - 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 - 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. - Scopitone, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31Hahahaha
"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..." " - 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. - 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. - MungoBBQ, on 10/12/2007, -3/+26I 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. - 91degrees, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24My favourite:
"Can't we make the text blink"
Clearly somebody just knew how to upset a web designer. - TheWorm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+25We need more glitter graphics and we need them now!
- 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. - crashflow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21ask the monopoly guy. he knows all about landlord attire. be sure to get the monocle.
- WildTang3nt, on 10/12/2007, -6/+26The dot-com burst dominated my face.
- inactive, 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? - 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.....
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Why did he not just ask the client wtf a landlord hat is.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Have you guys heard of http://clientcopia.com/ This site is dedicated to such stuff!
- DeskFlyer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14"I need more pesshht peesshht chuttt chutt papapapa on this animation"
Sorry, but that one had me giggling. - 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. - jonathantneal, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14That's just what you do when lives are on the line.
- 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! :(
- 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.
- DDoSAttack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11So "every page" means all the pages except the one's that you feel are relevant, right?
- 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. - pinkfu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11If I had a penny for every time I was asked to make something blink, sparkle, "move around", etc. I could retire right now.
- 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.
- 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. - 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. - cptpike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I had a boss once tell me to "make it more sexy and interactive". I proceeded to add a button that would reveal bare breasts.
- 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." - springfish, on 10/12/2007, -6/+16Good times!
- 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. - infekt, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13No one knows what a landlord hat is, that's why it's funny.
- 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!
- samnetwork, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Hello? What about digg? Try and turn off Javascript here.
- 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. - CobolNoFun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6nothings changes, just the other day i had to deal with this
client: when the customer logs in i want them to go to their profile.
me: but they dont want to go to their profile, they want to go to the page they clicked on before prompted to login.
client: yea... they should go to their profile
me: bu thats not what the customer will want to do.
client:why is this so difficult to understand?
me: ok fine ill make it happen
2 hours later
client: the site is annoying now, im always taken to the profile page, but thats not where im trying to go
me: so you want them to login and be taken back to the page they were attempting to go to.
client: yea, you should really get your act together - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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.
- 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 - 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 -
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