Posted by Neredbojias on 07/26/05 06:18

With neither quill nor qualm, Robert Frost-Bridges quothed:

> Our contact at the company has been heavily involved at all stages and quite
> forceful in his ideas of what he wants (hence the transitional contact page
> as he was most insistent on the new window link). He also fancied himself
> as a web designer without ever having really read any html at all (never
> mind css), but he had a copy of frontpage which he kept using to send me
> knocked together demo pages which I then had to pick through. He also had
> an office full of colleagues who all had an opinion too. (for instance, he
> had one who suggested that we didn't use a serif font for the site as it
> made it look dated - I suggested maybe his colleague could adjust the font
> settings in his browser options). How do you cope with this?

Sometimes your really have to put your foot down. If you hire me, you
hire all of me, not just the part you want to control. Naturally there
may be some compromise, but it has to be smart compromise with certain
issues beyond negotiation.

> I tried
> explaining about the fluidity of a web page as opposed to one of their
> brochures and about accessibility but it just wasn't getting through. I
> think all he wanted was that it look pixel perfect on his company issue
> laptop.

A natural desire. However, can he resize the viewport of his company
laptop? If so. what does he want then?

> The whole process took weeks as he was constantly asking for things
> to be changed and then changed back.

That's fine - if you're paid for all the time.

> Drove us mad.

That is your problem.

> He didn't seem to have
> any concern for copyright either and seemed quite happy to just whack a
> multimap right there on the page until I pointed out that no you can't
> actually do that. We really found it hard work at times trying to explain
> what we were doing and why.

You shouldn't have to explain each detail. A few interim samples for
approval and that's it.

> A couple of things I wondered along the way were:
> How do you go about testing your sites?

Upload them and test the major browsers. Nowadays you don't have to
worry about anything to old; I no longer support NS 4 and only give a
passing thought to IE 4. However, checking different platforms is
beneficial (-but often difficult.)

> Also, there are now so many css hack sites around now I was wondering how
> many of you actually use them? I mean, if you look at something like
> http://www.positioniseverything.net/ there are hacks there for any number
> of scenarios but at the end of the day is it worth trying to slip them all
> in. How do you know where to stop?

Nah, don't use 3rd-party hacks. -Make your own (snicker). Seriously,
most things can be done with css (-even with today's less-than-
scintillating support) and those that can't are (-if you can salt-grain
the currently popular antipathy) usually well-handled by tables. Also,
in a pinch, there's server-side scripting.

--
Neredbojias
Contrary to popular belief, it is believable.

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