hahaha this is brilliant

I immediately want to hire this guy and I don't even need a website.

I think this is probably the best part of it:

You are not a web designer.
I am the web designer.

So god damn true.

that is a great intro page for idiot business owners who have no idea about web design.

that is a great intro page for idiot business owners who have no idea about web design

Not knowing about web design doesn't make you an idiot. If anything it makes you cooler. Anyway I gotto get back to my programming :)

Yep, awesome site. Love it.

I am a male human. For over 12 years I have designed websites. Prior to that I was a shepherd on a remote island in the pacific. I wasn't. I was a recruitment consultant, people spat at me in the streets and shouted 'you're nearly as bad as an estate agent you knob'.

Not knowing about web design doesn't make you an idiot. If anything it makes you cooler.

Couldn't disagree with the statement more.

Knowing a little bit about everything is what gets you places.

I understand it would be frustrating having the client wanting to dictate the end result but at the end of the day you're being paid to do what the client wants.

I've never understood paying good dollars to hire a website designer and then second guessing everything they create for you, forcing them to produce crap. By all means explain what you're after in the brief, but too much back and forth on the trivial things shows a lack of respect for the time and effort it takes to understand the field.

Imagine that in the medical profession:
Doctor: "I'm afraid it's cancer, my recommendation is surgery followed by aggressive radiotherapy"
Patient: "Can't we just rub some cream on it doc? I've looked at your radiation dosage too - maybe we should halve that because I don't like feeling nauseous and want to reduce the amount of time I spend vomiting."

Sure, a second opinion from another doctor.
They don't get a second opinion from a niece that just finished the St Johns First Aid refresher course.

Couldn't disagree with the statement more.

So you think that a business owner who doesn't know about web design is an idiot?

I've never understood paying good dollars to hire a website designer and then second guessing everything they create for you, forcing them to produce crap. By all means explain what you're after in the brief, but too much back and forth on the trivial things shows a lack of respect for the time and effort it takes to understand the field.

Imagine that in the medical profession:
Doctor: "I'm afraid it's cancer, my recommendation is surgery followed by aggressive radiotherapy"
Patient: "Can't we just rub some cream on it doc? I've looked at your radiation dosage too - maybe we should halve that because I don't like feeling nauseous and want to reduce the amount of time I spend vomiting."

Yeah I understand the guys frustration it is the fact that he is treating his potential clients like they're idiots that I have a problem with.

If you think about it from the clients perspective though - what if they've spent 70 hours per week for years building the business from scratch and they are used to making the decisions themselves. Then the web designer presents them with something that to them looks s***. Surely you could understand the client having the urge to make changes. It probably isn't the wisest thing to make changes but just like the web developer gets personally frustrated by clients wanting to overide the creative elements the client probably gets peronally frustrated by the web developer presenting a site that isn't as beautiful as the client had imagined.

I do realise that it isn't logical to want to "help" do the design yourself but when people have a huge amount personally invested in something logic isn't always the winner.

but at the end of the day you're being paid to do what the client wants.

The problem is, most clients think they know what they want. if clients knew what they wanted 95%* of my problems wouldn't exist today.

*the other 5% is because a certain programmer likes to copy / paste code EVERYWHERE. why spend half an hour writing out 10 lines of code when you can copy and paste 1000 lines of code? then someone (me) has to fix the same issue in about 15 different locations. none of which are identified by our almost non existent QA / Designer staff member. (our designer doubles as quality assurance... which means the GUI is very well QAed, but that's about it).

/rant.

So what about all the people who go to naturopaths and chiros and f*****g homeopaths and crystal faith healers?

are you some how suggesting that those people AREN'T IDIOTS?

The problem is, most clients think they know what they want. if clients knew what they wanted 95%* of my problems wouldn't exist today.

*the other 5% is because a certain programmer likes to copy / paste code EVERYWHERE. why spend half an hour writing out 10 lines of code when you can copy and paste 1000 lines of code? then someone (me) has to fix the same issue in about 15 different locations. none of which are identified by our almost non existent QA / Designer staff member. (our designer doubles as quality assurance... which means the GUI is very well QAed, but that's about it).

/rant.

Yeah it's supremely frustrating no doubt about it. I've spent the last few days redoing s*** over and over again because the client keeps changing their mind but that is just how business works. As a professional you have to deal with the frustration (and the way I do that is by making sure I'm compensated for my time - the extra time is just an extra hidden cost of achieving the end result - with 99% of jobs it is inevitable). Then I get paid hourly so this is all easy for me to say :)

if you can't handle clients who don't understand design or ergonomics yet wants to be the designer with "your help" then don't whore yourself out to them?

But I can handle those clients.

And I think you'd be hard pressed to find a web dev company owner who supported his or her staff's right to choose which clients to accept based on how frustrating they think the client will be.

Hoggy do you get your staff to sit around a table and vote on whether to accept a job or not? :)

So what about all the people who go to naturopaths and chiros and f*****g homeopaths and crystal faith healers?

The point was that most people have enough respect for doctors not to argue with what treatment is prescribed. They know their stuff so you choose from the recommended options or you bugger off. This web designer is confident enough in their skills to set similar expectations.

Most of the list you've given aren't in the medical profession (chiro maybe, barely). But going from an oncologist to a chiropractor for a second opinion? Good luck. :P

er, in that case its up to your boss to make that decision for you isn't it? when you have a pimp you don't get to decide the clients

Do you think a responsible business owner should reject a client because he thinks the client might change requirements/design features hence frustrating the staff?

If the staff couldn't handle that frustration then I wouldn't want them working for me.

Not because the client might change requirements/design features, no.

Because the Client is an a******* that will demand ludicrious inclusions and be a snarky prick to the staff, Yes.

Been in business for a few years now, have only met one such creature.

Its vanishingly rare, so long as you appropriately position yourself in the market. Most of these sorts of contracts don't get past the quote stage.

I bet hoggy might find a staff shortage if EVERY client was like the one mentioned above.

But they're not, so ... ?

hell, he might find that all his staff have sat around the table and voted on weather to accept anymore jobs without him if he isn't offering some sort of job fulfillment.

I have no idea what this sentence means, basically from start to finish.

Most of the list you've given aren't in the medical profession (chiro maybe, barely). But going from an oncologist to a chiropractor for a second opinion? Good luck. :P

That's just a silly example. The point is that a huge swathe of the community thinks they know better than the medical profession. I s*** you not, we see it on this forum all the time. One of the key complaints about being a doctor is the self-diagnosis that patients take on themselves.

Some people just think they know everything.

haha you're a very good example of that type of person hogfather.

Errr ... I'm the first person to admit when I'm wrong.

But I do reckon I can claim some expertise in running a web dev company and speak with a little authority on the subject, yeh.

In that example though, you are the manager, who is in the position to tell the client to piss off. After your staff have come to you with (verified, serious) concerns.

Hoggy, in my game I have met 2 people like that, in 6 years... I too would say they are very rare.

Assuming that the vacuum cleaner salesman that runs the web company and sells every site at a loss has put a system in place where the client gets charged for asking for more stuff.... oh wait they haven't, they're too busy giving themselves a pat on the back for making a $2000 sale on something that will take 6 months and 5 guys to build, and organising fund raising dinners for their tax dodge charity.

I'm talking about well run businesses. Anyone who works for a business like you described needs to get better at whatever they do and work for a company not run by retards.

ha is that actually a real life example? Might be fun working for them just for the schenanigans?

Imagine that in the medical profession:
Doctor: "I'm afraid it's cancer, my recommendation is surgery followed by aggressive radiotherapy"
Patient: "Can't we just rub some cream on it doc? I've looked at your radiation dosage too - maybe we should halve that because I don't like feeling nauseous and want to reduce the amount of time I spend vomiting."

That was pretty much my dad

Doctor: don't eat this, don't eat that, you'll end up having a heart attack
him: *had a heart attack and died*

oh well, I guess that taught him, eh.

Or people who come into work & say "all it needs is just a little bend here"
I feel like saying well if that's all it needs, there's the bender, there's the welder. Knock yourself out.

5 hours later and you've only just managed to pull all the protective covering off

"why the hell do you charge so much for just a little bend?"

forehead -> wall

I think that's a logo he did, not the website.

At least its managed to stay vaguely on subject.

It's a pretty funny little diatribe hes got there but it comes across as slightly immature. I have been in the web field for about 10 years as well and you are always going to come across people who have unrealistic expectations about technology. It comes with the territory. If people are wasting your time in any business don't get angry just ignore them - its a much more efficient way of dealing with people who are making your job inefficient. Getting upset about it just makes you look childish.

it is brilliant

Quite funny but the largest quote price of 3,000 pounds tells me he is maybe getting a little ahead of himself in how awesome he is.

As a business man he shouldn't get frustrated by clients who change their mind all the time, act stupid and don't listen to advice - its a great opportunity to make twice as much money - simply charge by the hour and get paid twice as much for all the extra time involved.

If they are that much of a pain to deal with then just drop them - making a website complaining about stupid clients kinda makes you seem like a bit of an immature kid who thinks he is an artistic genius. Its just the way business works - deal with it and move on (and profit!).

I am not convinced you have ever made an internets for money.

I don't get people, its not about doing everything the client wants or what the designer wants. Its about what does the client need the site to function and if they have general outline of how they want that to be achieved. The designer then gives them an outline of what they will do, and do these in stages (if its a big project) hopefully with approval points and limited amount of minor changes that may deviate slightly out of the outline.

You quote for your time (and a bit more if you think their will be a lot of minor changes). You hold them to the outline/estimate...seriously not hard. If they really want to step out of the outline then you advise how long this will push the deadline and at what cost, if they accept you amend the invoice.

Whats wrong with cargo pants :(

Edit: Oh, I didn't even realise this was a revived thread. Hand me a towel so I can wipe this egg off my face!

most revived thread ever