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- guins6866, on 10/12/2007, -0/+63How to Drive your Website Developer Insane: A Primer
Thursday, March 23, 2006
An oft-quoted nugget of wisdom in the consumer world is, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” While this is certainly true for situations such as getting the wrong cup of coffee, putting together a puzzle only to find the last piece missing, or demanding that your meal be free because you found a hair in the salad you already finished eating, sadly, the business world has largely turned its back on this philosophy. Many businesses, especially in the Web site design and development field, have overdone the “customer/client is always right” mantra and will cave in to your demands, nodding emphatically while looking for the closest window to hurl their fragile programmer bodies through. In fact, Web developers go to site design meetings expecting to be driven insane in any number of ways. No, really: we like it. So here are some tips to help you give us what we really want while surely amusing yourselves in the process.
1) Perfect the “concerned eyebrow crunch” and use it randomly. When the designer asks if you like your navigation how it is, even if you do, crunch your eyebrows and look concerned. Squint your eyes and half-mutter, “Ehhhhh…” non-committally. Do this again when they ask if you like their suggestions for changing the navigation. Few things are more confusing than random, concerned eyebrow crunching. We want to please you! Why won’t you let us?!
2) Interrupt your programmer’s overview of proposed section headers with the fact that you really want the focus to be on executive bios. You want huge pictures of you and your friends carefully selected high-ranking staff to be on the homepage. *Note: this works best if you and your staff have any/all of the following looks: a penchant for flannel, bad ties, weird facial hair, bad toupee, ill-fitting clothing, no women executives, no minorities, a really creepy smile.
3) Talk about how you’d like a complicated splash page for the site. Tell the developer you want anyone who tries to skip over the splash page immediately re-directed. Use the phrase “flash intro” and “no skip button” with a smile and pretend like you know what you’re talking about. Shoot down any proposal that does not include a splash page. Offer a tissue when the programmer starts to cry.
4) Use the word “homepage” liberally. Insist that any and every page of the site has a link back to the homepage, using that exact phrase. Some suggested dialogue: “If we don’t say ‘homepage’ and have link back to the ‘homepage’ then no one will know how to get back to our ‘homepage.’ We really need to have a ‘homepage’ link on every page. This is a must-have item.” For fun, count the number of times the programmer visibly twitches uncomfortably after the word “homepage.” If you can get the count over 10, buy yourself a candy bar as a reward.
5) Constantly bring up your expert programmer son/cousin/close family friend. Make one up if you don’t really have one! Be sure to give them the most annoying qualities possible and make sure they always give the opposite advice of the programmer actually working on the project. This programmer wants to do the site in PHP? Well, your obscure relative says ASP is really better. Use the most condescending tone possible and trail off at the end, leaving an uncomfortable silence. Try undermining the programmer on such topics as site security, hosting choice, use of javascript, cross-browser css and anything having to do with e-mail. Insert concerned eyebrow crunching where necessary to punctuate your disdain of the programmer’s suggestions.
6) Demand that your site show up first in a google search, no matter what your industry. If you sell trash bags, you want to be first for trash bags, trash cans, and anytime anyone searches for anything on the web while even thinking about trash. While you’re at it, say you want to be first in Yahoo too. Balk at the proposed cost for such services. Set your search engine budget ridiculously low and threaten to cancel the project if your search goals aren’t met. Never mind if it’s actually impossible to guarantee being first on a google search – make sure your programmer knows that there are at least three other firms who promise this goal in writing. Should your programmer respond by trying to stab him or herself in the eye with a sharpened pencil, buy yourself several boxes of Girl Scout cookies and call it a day. You’ve won!
Used alone or combined, any of these tips are guaranteed to make your next Web site meeting a thousand times more enjoyable.
*Disclaimer: We take no responsibility for the consequences of using these tips in the real world. You could be putting your life on the line here, not to mention the sanity of another human being. Well, we tried to warn you. - lauterm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23I'd like to add a 7th.
7) Post his WordPress blog on digg so that it crashes or uses all his bandwidth. - nicepants, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19#16 - Even though your designer has come up with a great, unique, new design for your site, insist that they copy the website that you 'saw that looked really neat'.
- pondster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18Here's my favorite -
#11 - Keep telling him how you need it done ASAP - call 5x per day if needed but when he requires anything from you, wait 3 weeks to bring it over - but when you do drop it off call again right away complaining why it's not done yet. (how many of us have gone through that lol) - nacho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Digg feature suggestion: Retrieve and store a digg cached version of the reported page at the time of the story submission. Then add the cache link at the footer of the digg story next to 'email' and 'blog' etc. This way if/when the site goes down, there is no impact to the digg reader experience. I'm sure there are a bunch of sysadmin's and webmasters that would greatly appreciate it as well.
- theone3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14#8. Demand that the page degrade perfectly in any mobile phone, /without/ a seperate css file.
#9. Don't provide content that might be useful to visitors on your site. Try to make as many pointless pages as possible, and format them all with random bold, italic and strikethroughs in Microsoft Word.
#10. Demand that the site be editable directly from Microsoft Word.
Sadly, those are all from experience. - dracolich, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14You just described my every work day, I get it from people with PHDs at a university. I'm actually on hold with one now, they called me and put me on hold... oh happy day.
- tazamore, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Item 6 ("demand that you show up first in Google search results") is very true, it should number 1. This is truly the most common annoying request from web design clients who want to be listed first for popular search words like "travel" and "low mortgage rates" even when their site has nothing to do with that topic and they don't want to spend a dime on marketing and promotion. They get annoyed because they see their "competitors" (who happen to be Fortune 500 companies many times their size) are listed way before them in Google and expect that a little keyword spamming will get the listed first for "toyota cars" even above Toyota.com. You have to shake your head and refer to them a so-called "search engine optimizer" (ie. Google spam specialist) and just walk away.
- SerialMartini, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Us Digg users are like the internet barbarian horde. We come out of nowhere and suddenly your poor server is being raped, pillaged, and burned. I wonder what the internet version of boiling oil would be....
- norbiu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13how to drive digg users crazy! show them a page that DOESN'T WORK !!!
- spadin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Welcome to the world of web design, where the customer doesn't know what they want, but they sure as hell don't want it like it is now.
- Ryland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Good stuff. Two more articles along this line that I've always enjoyed:
If Architects Had To Work Like Web Designers...
http://www.scottmanning.com/archives/000455.php
No, The Customer is Bloody NOT Always Right
http://www.dangermouse.net/media/customer.html - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Well, I guess 'L' IS right next to 'K'....
- tazamore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9#18 Request a face-to-face meeting with your designer. When the designer arrives simply request one link to be changed then end the meeting. This is a very effective technique for pushing offsite designers to the brink of insanity. If the designer asks you to send simple change requests by email or phone, ignore that.
#19. Don't forget the FAX machine! This ancient technology is very effective in pushing designers into therapy. Draw colorful sketches in the margins of an oversized sheet of paper then call your web designer and ask for their FAX number. After the long grumbling pause they will give you a FAX number for their local Kinkos. That's just fine. FAX your convoluted drawing and wait for the questions to come pouring in. FAX anything you could've otherwise emailed like web address and typo corrections.
#20 If you use Microsoft Word to send communications to your designers make sure to export the document in a bizarre format like Harvard Graphics version 4, then archive it as a Mac .bin file, then remove the file extensions and email it, zipped of course. If they ask you to resend it, send a different file. - nuance, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Show the developer 5 cutting edge websites that clearly cost six figures, have nothing to do with one other topically, and are the visual representation of an oxymoron when viewed together and tell them you want "pretty much the same thing, but cooler" then (while keeping a straight face, and only after a 3 hour meeting) tell them your budget is "about 250.00".
- pondster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9just speaking from exp drac lol.
I have a site I have been working on now for over a year (actually 1year, 4 months) I gave the last updates to them over a month ago, then they requested I PRINT the entire site (This is a HUGE site, largest I ever worked on) oh and I have printed the entire site over 4 times already - the last 4 updates since august when they changed directors (again) oh and did I mention the site is not even LIVE! and they call complaining that their old site looks drab, I tell them well we can always launch the new site (But its not ready yet! ARRRGH!!!) So far since the start of the project I have gone through 3 directors, over 300 pages of modifications, oh and this was assigned to me the very first day I started with the company and it was someone elses project, which I have no idea how long they were working on it! - o0joshua0o, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7It's worst when the people you're working for know just enough about web design to be dangerous, but not enough to know WTF they're actually talking about.
I much prefer to do a job for someone who doesn't know the slightest thing about web development. They're much more trusting. - jaxun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Thank God for articles and discussions like this. Any time get burnt out on my current job of 13 years, and I think I need to jump ship to get into the design business to feed my "creative side", I just have to read about the nightmare of dealing with atual customers to snap me back into reality and make me thankful I came to my senses in time.
- apotropaic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6lol... that one has happened to me. "Oh yea I really like that... but have you ever seen this page?"
- Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Overheated Silicon.
- dracolich, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6#14 Hand your designer a CD full of .doc .pdf and .jpgs with random names that mean nothing. Then say "make my site out of this, pick out the content I need and organize it for me, I only need about half of it." Conveniently forget to mention what content you need and how you want it organized and that you want all of it up complete with photo gallery's and every pdf turned into a working web form that will email to 50 people and post into some freaky database.
#15 Ask for a new design fully knowing that there are 1500 static pages on the site because the previous designer was a retard and couldn't use a template.
(this was what I walked into work for today :/ ) - dfunct, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6A great way of dealing clients who ring and put you on hold is to just terminate the call, when they ring back simply say that you got disconnected which of course is the truth :) I just hate it when people ring ME and then put ME on hold
- Iriel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Sadly, this is a part of the permanent employment that I hold. The company hosts 6-7 ( I try not keep track ) foreign domains with nearly exact duplicate content in English for non-english domains! Then the boss complains about not getting indexed enough because "we changed the meta tags, title and top two heading tags!" so that should fix it, right? And of course, Google is the only search engine that matters.
- rrrrob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5#100 Tech Support
Call the developer at home on a random Tuesday night and explain your home PC is acting "funny" and your daughter can't access the Internet for her homework. Ask if they'd be willing to troubleshoot over the phone or just come over and help. "I double clicked the Internet icon, you know the blue E, and it comes up sooo slow and with all these pop-ups. You're a computer guy think you can help me out?"
The pressure behind my eyes goes up just thinking about it.... - dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Wow, so the web dev industry is exactly like the ad publishing industry.
I guess it all comes down to neanderthals asking the elites for things they don't understand. - Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Whenever a client talks about "search engine results", then it is time to walk away. If the search engine is how the client expects to receive most of his visits, then he probably won't be able to pay you when you finish the work.
- sidhighwind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Wow thoes are good. I've actually been in meetings where people have said stuff like that.
- crimson117, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This was discussed for /. time and time again. There are too many copyright issues and advertising issues etc for digg or /. to become a proxy service as well.
- daamoth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4#22 - "I'd like to get an idea of what my site will look like when it's done."
Insist that you'd like to see "what the site will look like when it's all done." Provide no content to your developer but have him design the entire site from start to finish.
Take a look at what he sends you and tell him that the stock photos don't look right and that the "lorem ipsum" text doesn't even look like English! When he asks you to provide text and images, stand strong. Don't provide anything. If he's so good at designing websites, he should be able to complete your website without any content.
What ever you do, don't use your imagination. You need to see what the site is going to look like when it's done. Remember, you're the client. The rules of space and time don't apply to you. You should be able to see your completed future site before it's done.
When you finally do get to peek at your completed future site, say something like, "Now that I've seen the entire site, I think that maybe we should change the layout, colors, text, images, and links. Let's have that done sooner rather than later -- this afternoon would be great. I know I'm asking a lot of you so maybe 5:00 pm would work instead. Aren't I a nice client?"
When it comes time to pay, remember that $5000 means 100 bi-monthly installments of $50 and includes random complete site redesigns. - epicserve, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5There should be a way to bookmark a digg post so you can view it later when it comes online without digging it.
- oishii, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Even better, answer any and all inquiries of the form "When exactly does this need to be done?" with the super-clever reply, "Yesterday!"
- FunkyFresh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4#17 Concentrate on details as soon as possible. Issues like navigation and site structure will work themselves out -- what you as the client need to be concerned with is the exact placement of images, tweaking the colors, and precise wording. Once your web developer can get you a mock-up with these details perfect, it should only take them a day or two to get the boring stuff like code and database straigtened out.
- gaudior, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It's sad how much of this is true for ALL software development, not just web design. I've been doing stuff like this for nearly 20 years, and it doesn't matter if it's an insurance company, a welding shop, or a trucking company. The client, or your PHB knows what they think they want, and aren't afraid to tell you how to give them that.
I think the best training I have ever had is in personal communications and psychology, not data structures and algorithms. Dealing with the people is far harder than dealing with the bits and bytes. It doesn't do any of us geeks any good to abuse the less clueful in our midst. We need to be patient, like parents explaining things to small children. If we can do that without becoming angry, or condescending, then everyone wins. - pcgeek101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Wow this is a great read and so true ... @theone3: that's truly a horrifying experience. Editable from MS Word? I'd quit the job
- ahhell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This should be Dilbert strip.
- tazamore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3#21: Ecommerce! Tell your web designer you want to sell things on the web site. Your designer will babble stuff about shopping carts and merchant accounts, just nod and say "Yeah, all that. Just like that." When your ecommerce site is finally ready ask your designer why it doesn't work like ebay. Tell them you want ebay features. When the frustrated designer asks you to be more specific say "I don't see any sellers. I want to rank other sellers then charge them and sell subscriptions." Then present a never before discussed business plan which you invented while tripping on acid.
- ketchison, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3wow, I think we deal with this on almost every project. Customer wants the project done yesterday, but they refuse to provide material to complete the project.
- Pimpalicious316, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3i wish i could "thumb up" that comment a billion times. my current employer insists that the site i am doing for them be just like his top competitors (all flash with black and yellow as the background/text color). :(
- teddziuba, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3#37: Ask the programmer to display all of your dynamic content with read/write capability without a database. The programmer will mumble things like "bad idea" and "20,000 rows won't work in a text file", but the programmer isn't as visionary as you. You've recognized that a database is the same thing as an Excel file, and that all you should need is an Excel file. Plus, your hosting company wants you to pay extra for database hosting, which you've pinned as an unnecessary expense.
When the site is implemented, complain to the programmer because it runs too slow with 10,000 users/day connecting. If the programmer manages to talk you into paying the extra $10/month for database hosting, tell him to store all the images, flash content, and media in the database. After all, you want to get your $10 worth.
Insist that all database content be downloadable as an Excel file.
/I wouldn't be posting it if it weren't true :( - elvisisdead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Jesus, that's the best. I had one tell me once, "I want our site to look like the Washington Post". My comment was, "Well, wouldn't it then be the Washington Post, sir?". Then it spiraled out of control about branding, etc.
- Izzie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I've been demanded to make webpages to be editable through excel ...
of course this came directly from the CEO who is computer literate at least according to him.
http://digg.com/science/Study_Shows_most_People_are_Unaware_of_Their_Incompetence
http://digg.com/security/Why_every_city_council_needs_at_least_one_geek_=] - edto, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This stuff is all too true. Last week my client called and asked if I could call up google to politely add us to the top search for "festivals".
- pondster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3LOL :-p "TUTTLE" is going to be my new term for incompetent idiot!
ie: You can't send/rec email? can you get on the internet? no? um..ok...you actually need internet access to recieve your email.....damn TUTTLE.... - ednopantz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The author totally forgot the most important item: Expand the scope of work dramatically from the original spec, demand it be implemented immediately, without a formal respec, then complain when the cost exceeds expectations for the smaller project. Delay payment as long as possible.
- mjaleo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Holy crap, thanks for posting the list.
I'm a fulltime freelance web designer and holy ***** if i haven't heard most of those in meetings before.
The #1 on Google is my favorite. "So you registered your domain for ONE year, and want to be number one for 'cars in maryland' ? Are you insane?" - Dracos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3#29 Insist that links look exactly like text.
#30 Remove the useful navigation features after the 5th redesign
#31 Demand multi-day changes hourly.
#32 Insist that your copy-and-paste-monkeyboy developer buddy can do it, why can't your developer?
#33 Semi-secretly develop a complete copy of the site using a different platform just in case the real project fails.
#34 When the devloper quits, don't bother to find out why, just make up something to make them look bad. - freakystyley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Based on my experiences:
#30 Point at the Lorem Ipsum text and declare "Please change the text, our clients don't read latin."
#31 Keep using the expression "jazz it up"
#32 Demand that every single page title be in image format simply because normal text isn't always anti-aliased.
#33 Keep describing your glorified portal as "the next killer app".
#34 Demand that the design be peppered with stock photography of tech support personnel.
#34a "What do you mean this image costs $100!?"
#36 "What's a vectorized logo?" - meechp123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I love #5: "Constantly bring up your expert programmer son/cousin/close family friend"
When I hear that from a client, I ask "Well, why aren't you using them to design/develop your site".
I actually had to tell a client to screw off and I sent him his money back. Life is way too aggravating to deal with a person that hired you to do a job and they turn around and want control of everything. Yes, they paid for my services, but, when they want something stupid (he wanted his navigation at the bottom of the site because he wanted to "encourage" people to read this content), I would rather find another client who will place trust in my skills. - circusbred, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Whenever someone asks me for my fax number, I die a little bit inside. D:
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The most difficult part of that process is talking to clueless noobs in a non-condescending way. If you're breaking it down to such an elementary level that they KNOW you're putting it in moron-speak, they'll feel coddled and won't react well. You have to walk a fine line with some people. I usually throw it at them in leet-speak first, and after the clueless look, I say, "or in other words, bla bla bla simplified for your noob self yadda yadda". If I get a strong nod and a look of recognition in their eyes, I know it's working.
You really have to be careful when gauging the technical (and even educational) level of your clients. Too much leet and their brains escape to la-la-chocolate-waterfall land, too much dumb and they get a chip on their shoulder and will do exactly the opposite of what you want, because they adopt a 'he thinks I'm so dumb, well I'll show him!' mentality.
I'd honestly say that after looking after some very wealthy yet very computer illiterate clients for awhile, communication is 75% of the job. There is one client that I consistently fail to crack (they refuse to upgrade a nearly dead 5 year old Dell with a burned-in monitor) but the day I walk in and refuse to work on it, they won't have a choice. -
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