So I'm working on this site and when I originally met with the guy he like drew out the front page as a big block and broke it into sections and told me where to put things (basically he was playing designer for me). So I do the front page and I try to make it look nice and sort of edgy. This is the feedback I got from them a few hours later."please follow original instructions. we don't want this page to look tricked out or computer generated..."
fucking brilliant.
Can anyone beat this comment?
I seriously doubt it
Um ... maybe the client has seen some websites they liked and was trying to pass that info on to you? Maybe they didn't want "edgy"?
"We don't think it's communicating the message effectively, maybe if it said _______."[...]
('So now you're a copywriter,' [I] thought.
Isn't it useful to get feedback on the client about what the site might say?
Identify how many of these are actually the designer's arrogance, inability to help the client learn webdesign vocabulary, or refusal to understand the sort of site appropriate to the client's purpose, image, and audience.
Discussions like this remind me of teacher's-lounge (or forum) discussions, where everyone trots out their "Can you believe how dim this student was?" quote. They're frequently hilarious, but they also frequently reveal unacknowledged biases and egos.
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Posted by johndan at November 21, 2003 10:00 AM
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Good point. I can see this being a difficult client/designer issue, but in many cases the client will have good, valid reasons for text-only versions (as you said, accessibility is one). I suppose it depends on what the client originally asked for. But it's not really in the class of the other comments.
Accessibility has always been an issue with my sites--I usually do alt tags, for example, but not always. Part of that is due to the fact that I still have difficulties understanding that the general population might look at my website, let alone a subset of that population. (Ironically, I have a PhD in Rhetoric. This sort of rhetorical blindspot is true of almost all the PhDs in Rhetoric I know....)
Posted by: Johndan at March 29, 2004 01:26 PM