Okay, so what do YOU do when you make something really nice, and you'd really really like to be done with the site, like, 5 days ago, and the client keeps grumbling about it taking so long but at the same time, THEY KEEP COMPLAINING ABOUT THE DESIGN!?!?!?! I have a client who likes about 1/3 of everything I do, and then makes suggestions about what he would prefer, which is invariably something hideous and ugly. Sure, we've upped the price on him a few times for scope creep, but at this point I just want to be done. No amount of money is worth this! It's not that I take my work so personally, it's just that if you hire a designer, it's because that person is a professional! He's a dentist, and I'm sure his patients never offer him suggestions on how to cap a tooth. So what do you do when the client has lots of "ideas", and they all suck a lot? At what point do you just remind the guy that he's paying you because you know some things that he doesn't?
Sigh... my rant is over...
[This message has been edited by Odd Cat (edited 10-11-2002).]
I'd say you've *passed* the point where you tell him to take your professional opinion. Do it with tact, of course, but you need to firmly say that, from your past experience, idea X is a *very* bad idea, mainly for reason Y, and that beyond that he's going to have to trust your professional/experienced opinion on it.
OddCat: You drop the URL into Site Reviews and then if things look favourable then send a selection of reviews on to the client - if we are happy with it then they should be bloody well be
whenever a you make something beautiful but the client imagines something different (less beautiful), you got no chance. make it exactly like the client wants.
I think in areas of design like this, where the look & feel which are subject mainly to opinion, not operation - this is one of the hardests concepts to run your business by, but i guess it depends on what you want:
If you in business for, well business.. then yes the customer IS always right (if you want him to give good references or come back etc then do it how they want).. but if your doing it out of principle, well then =)
You can always tell him you'll give his money back and do it for free if you can do it your own way :P - but.. heh
Repeating what was just said tho, if you know their ideas are bad etc, the best way you can tell them otherwise is to back it up with WHY it is bad and FROM EXPERIENCE etc... you will find that if it becomes a case that you cant give them a reason why not do it their way, then YOU are most likely basing your opinion on what YOU like.. which isnt always best for your client either.
But like i said design is tricky like that, but thats just my opinion - i havnt been doing this for a great deal of time, but even in a short time ive noticed this.
From what I'm seeing, it looks like a lot of small business people come at their business's web site as if it were a vanity site. They want some kind of stupid animation on it, a personal bio about them, links to their favorite sites, screen captures of pub files of their favorite magazine ads that they've done. And as a pro, you know that most clients won't be looking at about 50% of the crap they put on there.
So I guess it's how you approach it. If you come at it from a marketing point of view, then you can tell your client that you are designing a site that, according to the numbers, is most likely to represent his/her business appropriately to the clients who are viewing it, and that using animated GIFs of happy animals and curser tracers and backgrounds on every page will tend to look sophomoric, not professional. Not to mention, all the stuff that the client asks for that I cannot do because it's not possible on the web or because it would amount to stealing someone else's images and ideas (I have lost count of how many times I've had to use the phrase "intellectual property" during this project).
Or you can design it exactly how he/she wants it, and let the client wonder why the web site is not generating any business.
Which is your job, making a site that the client asks for, or making a site that will give the client what he wants, which is more business? Good question (probably a good question for the client).
Now, my new issue with this site is that it is the site that never ends. We made the final product, the client asked us to redo half the pages and add a lot of new content (he was supposed to give us all of the content up front). We are now past the deadline, and the client still wants updates. Sure, we can charge him an hourly rate for the updates, but he may not mind paying $65 for updates and additions. And really, we'd like to move on.
So how do you tell the client "no really, this is it. We are done. This is what you paid for, and it is done"? How do you cut it off? Or am I being whiney; should I just take the $65 an hour and make his stupid updates, even if I am still doing this in 3 months?
As for that "the customer is always right" fossil, I once read this about that statement: if a customer walks in to McDonald's and orders lobster, he is, in theory, wrong. McDonald's doesn't serve lobster. So how can the customer always be right if the customer is free to make ridiculous demands? This is how; the true meaning of that phrase is not that your job is to be slave to the customer's whim. The true meaning places the server in a more active position, as the person whose job it is to MAKE the customer right. "Hey, we don't have lobster here, but I can get you a burger and some pretty tasty fries..."
"Hey, I can design your site like that if you want, but here's what I recommend you do if you want to make money off of this site..."
[This message has been edited by Odd Cat (edited 10-30-2002).]
Basically you said what my previous post said in a different way anyhow i think, i guess it depends which aspect of the site you are talking about - i think ive come across a bit of people doing *aesthetic*look of the page etc based on what they like, not what the client likes.
But as i said, if you have a good & valid reason for not doing what a client wants and explain it to them, the most of the time they would want to do it the right way, but if they didnt *excluding what CANT be done on the web* then they are still the client...
I guess it depends how what you call the fossil that "the customer is always right", is looked at. Sure you could take your lobster example... but i think you're being a tad extreme there... You could look at it more like, using your Macdonalds example, if a customer says that the burger he just bought is too cold. Then the burger he just bought IS to cold.. If you say that to them, you will find 99% of the time they will give you a new burger, even if you've taken a bite out of it, ive seen this firsthand many times.
But like i said i guess its how u want to look at it.... IMO essentially the client is always right, i mean you can blow that statement way out of proportion if you want to, but im sure you know someone means when they say it...
As for petskull "expect a statement as to why your wrong" - lol, im glad you're so sure of yourself, but if you look at it properly you will see that for this sort of thing, generally no one is wrong they just look at it differently =) But i do agree with most of what oddcat said anyhow, i just think some things were blown a little out of proportion :P
Its mostly opinionated.. so thats my opinion anyhow /end rant
quote:i think ive come across a bit of people doing *aesthetic*look of the page etc based on what they like, not what the client likes.
I hear ya, and I know some people who develop a really bad raport with their clients, because they absolutely refuse to bend on the design. I'm pretty open to client suggestions. My main issue is that this client wants a lot of cute web tricks on his page. You know, the flashy stuff that tends to impress you when you first learn web design, but that you later realize is crap. I don't mind the client's input on the general look of the site, and I don't mind if the client says "I don't like that" to some of my sketches. That's the business. I DO mind when the client wants a site that looks like it was done by someone who is not a professional. If it comes down to me not making my money, I'll do it, after making lots of really good arguments against the client's ideas. However, I would never EVER put a site that I don't think is professional looking in my portfolio. And when I say that it's not professional, I'm referring to design that is inappropriate for the client's business/target audience, and design that makes use of bad web elements such as ridiculous looking logos or busy background images, and/or a disregard for the basic principals of design. I was hired to redo his site, because his old site looks really cheesy. And now he's trying his hardest to make the new one look cheesy.
There are, essentially, two different schools of web design that I see in most discussions by designers. One is the "give 'em what they want" school, and the other is the "give 'em what you want" school. My approach leans a bit to the more selfish end, but I like to call it the "give 'em the tools to get what they want" approach. Most clients are paying you because they expect to make money off of a site. When it comes down to the nuts and bolts, I can tell them that people tend to take a professional-looking site more seriously, and if the site is poorly designed and built, the reflection on the client is that his business does a poor job. That's harsh, but true. I don't know about you guys, but I won't buy anything from a web site that looks like it was thrown together by an amateur. Now, if a client still wants to make a ridiculous site, I'll follow through. But I agree with Petskull; I'll do one or the other, not both.
That's what I meant with the lobster story. Because some clients do come in asking you for lobster at a McDonald's, you know? And some of these folks are coming into a 4 star restaurant asking you for a McDonald's burger (that's pretty much what my client is doing. And for you ego-watchers out there, I'm not calling myself 4 star. I am saying, however, that I'm a professional, not a fry-cook). I can get the dude a hamburger, but I can also advise him that there are better things on the menu.
As for the lobster/McDonalds fable, I'm not quite sure where you're headed with that warmed over burger story. Are you saying that if he doesn't like your design, you should make a new design? Because I agree with that, and I went through 3 sketches before we agreed on the layout. You should agree on a layout before you start work on anything else. But that was long, long ago. It's not the major layout that is the problem. The demon is the details right now. I've made him a nice, professional layout, and that is not being disputed. The problem is he keeps wanting to add all those nifty web elements to the pages. That's my big problem; he wants professional and cheesy at the same time. Frankly, that looks worse than just cheesy.
But oh well. I've decided that I will do his additional updates for him, but it will be $65 an hour, and he must first pay us for the initial agreed upon fee (we are still owed for half of the site). After that is paid, I agree to work at $65 an hour, but I expect to be paid weekly for the updates. You wouldn't believe how this guy is stringing us along, and he continued sending us updates for the site after the deadline, without so much as a nod to the fact that the deadline had passed! My project manager said that this is the worst client he's ever had, and that alone makes me feel better. I'd hate to think that they're all like this.
[This message has been edited by Odd Cat (edited 10-30-2002).]
Yeh well by the sounds of it we are saying the exact same thing i agree with you pretty much completely. You still get alot of good clients who will want to do most of it your way i guess.
If a client comes to you wanting a cheesy design though, i guess you have to choose wether to just turn them down, or maybe just not include them in your portfolio....... but it still goes down as something you did i guess... mmm
If you're working freelance, you don't have to claim it to any future clients, and I'm not sure how they would find out that you did it. What sucks is that the guy you did that site for may tell his friends about you, and then you have more people wanting web sites that are no good, or people who see his site and think "wow, that designer really sucks! My teenage kid can make web sites better than that!" Not to mention his friends who tell him his site sucks, and then, even though you did what he asks, he now thinks you did a bad job. It's a vicious cycle! In smaller markets, word of mouth can be really powerful.
Yeh i guess sometimes you just have too choose, but people starting up probably wouldnt be to choosy with clients i guess. Maybe when you're feet are on the ground some more you can pull your weight around a bit.
For me, as you said someone will eventually see a bad site you do and it may have some repercussions...... i honestly would rather charge someone less and spend more time myself on a design that i think is more proffesional , even if you would normally charge more for a little extra design time..
posted 10-11-2002 04:32
/end rant