Posted by saz on 10/24/83 11:22

In article <3kl48eFv255pU1@individual.net>, web@brightonfixedodds.net
says...
> I was recently asked to help out with the reworking of a company web site by
> a friend of mine who had been approached by someone at the company. (my
> friend is actually a student on a graphics design course so we think maybe
> they were looking for a cheap alternative to a professional designer).
> Anyway he did some flash work for them and they asked if he could maybe
> help freshen up their web site. Basically they were looking at getting a
> redesign done at some stage but wanted the code to have a bit of a spring
> clean in the meantime and as he knew I was a html hobbyist/nerd I was roped
> in.
>
> Anyway, so far I've produced this:
> http://www.mxdigital.co.uk/
>
> from this:
> http://www.brightonfixedodds.net/oldmxd/
>
> What I didn't realise 'til now was how difficult it is for you people who do
> this for a living when dealing with clients.
> 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? 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. The whole process took weeks as he was constantly asking for things
> to be changed and then changed back. Drove us mad. 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.

Always have a contract. Specify exactly what is expected from both
sides. If they give you something to do and then go back to the way it
was, charge them for that extra time - it is not part of the contract.

You're allowing your customer to run your business. I once said to a
customer "I don't tell you how to run your business, please don't tell
me how to run mine". He is still a customer, but now he's very
reasonable in his requests and listens to my input.

If I had lost him after the comment, no big deal. Like your customer,
he was more trouble than he was worth.

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