It's been quite a week at Obox Design, one which I wished ended on Monday and not Friday. Friday came 4 days too late for me if I'm honest.
At Obox we are fortunate enough to be blessed with some truly awesome clients but sometimes the requests can get a bit much and this week was the crowning moment of special client requests.
Luckily we have learned (the hard way) to say 'No' when things get unreasonable but the requests can be so amazing that they still manage to find a way to crawl under my skin.
I've decided to give you a taste of what we experienced this week, these three will go in the Hall of Fame.
In Ascending order:
Shocker Number 3:
We have created a news site for one of our clients. Naturally the home page will be long. In fact it's in the region of 5000px long.
The request:
"Can the page size be reduced slightly to prevent vertical sliding"
What exactly is slightly?
Shocker Number 2:
Client has a dark website. He chose these colors and yet:
The request:
"When the site loads a new page, a black screen appears whilst it's loading - we need to change this to a white screen instead."
Yeah totally... That really is a special one but it doesn't beat this:
Shocker Number 1:
This may actually be the most special request Obox has ever received.
The request:
"Dear David,
My son has been bored over the past 2 weeks and has come up with a new website design. I have attached what he did it on power point. Can you change his design to this one?
I think he has done quite well, considering he has no training. Let me know what you think.
Cheers
Client"
I truly thought that the above only happened in your nightmares.
Luckily all of the above get a fat 'NO' in the reply back to the client.
I feel better now.
30 Comments
Ive followed this unfold on twitter. Sometimes when you get clients or requests like this you think, *why am i doing this* but hopefully these type of requests are on the low side. Have a good weekend
I dont think I have laughed that much in a long time... Something you can tell your kids and grand-kids about :)
I want to see a screenshot of the powerpoint design :)
@Nick - I cant open the PPT (thankfully)... so its a mystery to all of us :)
POWWWWWWWWWWWWERRRRRRRRRRRRR POINT!!!!!!!!!! We need more of these
Its seems like the client target "Elvish Ants" (Non-Black background, and tiny fonts to fix PAGE SLIDE).
My client want IE6 support...
LOL :)
That last part with the PowerPoint cracked me up.
Reminds me of:
http://freelanceswitch.cdn.plus.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/FF144_HigherPower.jpg
Powerpoint. The web designers best friend.
#sarcasm.
Hey David!
Very funny,
How did you say no? with what words or tone?
I put it to them as nicely as I could ;)
"Hi Mr X,
I dont think thats a good idea. Lets try this"
Kind of emails.
WAHAHAHA!
*snort* No. 3 is just classic! OMF, *how* many times have I had THAT request, lol lol lol ...
Shame guys, rough week, eh?
WAHAHAHA!
*snort* No. 3 is just classic! OMF, *how* many times have I had THAT request, lol lol lol ...
Shame guys, rough week, eh?
I am currently in the middle of a client who hosts through my company trying to cut their current developer out of the picture because they have not gotten their update done in less than 2 hrs. Not sure what the update is but something to do with 100 photos needed to be added to a gallery. Glad I just host and im not the designer / developer on this one.
Gotta love clients who expect things one way only to learn that well the magic we do does not happen in a snap and we cant really read their minds.
Hahahaha.
That is funny!
I also want to see the powerpoint :)
What - you guys dont know how to slice a powerpoint?
@Fred - Im thinking of doing night courses so I can learn fast :)
@Bob - I havent even seen the ppt yet!
WOW! Thats hilarious!
David, send me the PPT so I can open it and convert to PDF. Cmon, do it now! ;)
lol I cant believe you guys said no to the powerpoint. Id like to know what that last client replied with and what they might say after reading this post.
@David - No reply yet dude. I dont expect one really.
@Jad (aka Design Informer) - Sorry dude, that wont happen ;) As you can see above, not even my dad (Bob) gets to see it.
Hehe, I understand, that definitely wouldnt be right to post their website PPT screenshot. It would be fun though, but wrong! :)
Anyway, looking forward to the redesign.
David, I really cant get into what I do at my day job, but Ill share this story...
This lady from the accounting department from a major national distributor emails me to ask "can you please send me a list of all items and quantities shipped to the following locations in January? A and B" So Im thinking, we already billed you for all shipments in January, hell February is practically over! So I comply and I tell my accounting department to gather a copy of all in voices for location A. Furthermore, I let this lady know that we have never shipped to location B. So she comes back and asks again for a list of what was shipped to each location? I thought, LADY! You are the one ordering from us and shipping to YOUR customer, you would think you would already know this information and exactly where we shipped so I shouldnt have to tell you! I figure she wanted an actual excel list or something, but she she can do her own work.
Some people really dont think sometimes.
Its always easier to ask someone that to actually look for yourself. Few people really take the initiative and make an effort.
Oh, and thinking is the hardest part.
Haha so funny!
Quite a deception though we cant see the powerpoint :-)
Yes these are funny, but you have to ask yourself why they are asking these questions.
Typically the reasons why clients think the page needs to be white while loading, or shouldnt involve any vertical scrolling are because they have misconceptions about website design that perhaps held true 10 years ago, but are well out of date now.
Its up to us (as professionals) to educate our clients and manage their expectations. Some clients are just harder to manage than others :-)
There is only so much you can do to educate a client before they pop questions like these ;)
Hey, I wasnt criticising the way you deal with your clients. Just making a general point. Personally I think this is one of the hardest challenges in web design.
@Dave - Dont worry, I know you werent aiming it at us. Im just saying there is only so much we can do before they ask these types of things. Its impossible to predict when it will happen.
Hey! If someone gives u such a ...bad... request, the only way to say no is to send him a bad offer back. Yes Sir, of course we can do it, even from PPT, but it will cost 10000 Dollar.
I'm feeling this pain tonight gents, I want to scream!