Forum Moderators: phranque
I am creating a website for a customer. This site supposed to be aimed at “broadening their horizons” and to accommodate customers they never before cared about. The reason for their change, is the change in the economy in the US. Not a lot of people who know this business care to buy their expensive products (They range from $2,000 to $20,000) at the moment. Needless to say they are looking to expand their market aim to include “Internet Shoppers” since this can mean selling to someone in California, or England ... Not just the immediate area, and shows they happen to hit across the country.
Problem:
They are very nice people, but very stubborn and naive when it come to the internet. They want things that are “Associated with the company” to be included in the site. Great idea. I mean who doesn’t right? Your website is a virtual representation of your physical business, so naturally the identity on the site has to coincide with “who you are”.
The problem I am having is trying to convince that there are “ways” to do things without driving a customer away. Or to keep them interested, and coming back to their site. First thing, the color #206163. They want this as the background and want nothing but black text on it. They will not even allow for tables to be highlighted with a border of this color. Reason? I quote ... “Our work looks it’s best against this color. And also our current customers are very familiar with this color. It’s the color we use as the backdrop in our shows, so naturally we want it to be the backdrop on our site.”
When I asked my elderly Mother-In-Law to look at the site, she had a hard time reading it. Bad news. Their reply to this... “I can read it fine, and I’m sitting back in my chair, I do better with darker backgrounds on websites” My reply, “I realize you may do better, but some people may not.” And on and on from there.
Other issues include placement of items for ease of navigation, Extremely plain content (Glorified text doc with pics) ... Needless to say, I am thinking about charging him for Frontpage, telling them to build a “Personal Homepage” because that is what I feel this is turning into, and calling it quits. I have the best interest of getting customers to the site and getting them to STAY... But I feel I am also ethically obligated to do what he says because I am paid to do it. So do I:
1) (ethical) Do my job, make the site the way they want it, disclude it from my portfolio (for obvious reasons if you saw the site), and take their money.
2) (moral) Feel morally obligated to get as much clientele through the door as possible, force them into a site they don’t “personally care for” but the world will navigate, read, and feel comfortable with. Not to mention giving it more of the feel of a “business” than a “homepage”.
I have never faced someone who didn’t trust my judgement and my input as a webmaster when building their site. This sucks... What do I do from here?
Thanks,
-- Zak
1. I can allow you to use my experience as a diesnger to make a site.
2. I can make the site exactly how you want it without any of my input."
Simple, but I like it... being this frustrated has clouded my sight, I feel somewhat disillusioned. I will consider your advice though :0) Thanks for your input.
-- Zak
If you give them what they want the way they want it, you'll want to be sure that if they get no traffic they don't come pounding on your door yelling "it's all your fault!" You would do this by outlining exactly what they're having you build, and what you feel should be done instead, and getting them to sign off on the outline; get 75% up front, and they sign-off on the whole site once it's live after you've been paid in full.
Then should they come back to you in 6 months because they've no traffic, you pull out the signed-off contract and point out to them exactly where you explained how it should be done.
Of course, this probably won't get you any referrals from them, but considering the difficulties you're having with these people, and the fact that you're already not going to include this site in your portfolio, and the possibility that anyone they MIGHT refer to you might be the same sort of people, that's maybe not all that bad.
The problem is they are talking contradictions. They say that "We want this site to bring our business into the modern age", yet the are living in the '50's, and try to implement that lifestyle into the site. They say they want Customers from this site, yet they want a homepage that talks about the people of the company first and places little emphasis on the content. This is where my confusion comes, they say they want one thing (A GREAT BUSINESS SITE! RAH! RAH!) yet they want it to look like a personal webpage.
And you are right, they have little tolerance for listening to someone else about what's good for "their" business, thus won't tolerate being "educated" about what's good & bad.
I think my only option may be to spell it out like Livenomadic said, AND to give them a "trafic contract" as you suggested. Since they have clearly stated that they want as much traffic as possible to "get their business rolling again" while keeping their site the way they want it. Oh wait... another contradiction... lol
-- Zak
"If you already know what's best, then why did you hire me?"
I got this treatment until I raised my prices. People will argue with the guy who mows their lawn a lot more than they will argue with their doctor or lawyer.
Raise your fees. Be seen as an expert consultant, not as hired day-labor. Tell them you can't accept the job or their money if they won't listen to you about what sells. If they don't trust you, get out now. Refer them to a competitor you don't like.
Second question: Do they print all of their inter-office memos on color #206163 paper? If not, why not? Certainly they need to maintain the corporate image, right? Black text on that background color is horrid. That color would work fine for the side navigation menu and top banner, but with off-white divs or tables overlaid for the menu lists. If they sell expensive items, shown them some other expensive-item sites, and point out why they sell.
Good luck,
Jim
Ditto Rolls Royce. Blues to blue greys, with a large hunk of darkish-blue sidebar with pale text menu items, one blue greyish graphic, clean, usable.
Beretta ditto again. Clean design (again leaving the flash out of it), minimal colors, easy to read (uses WAY too much js though!)
While those sites might not be the sort of site your client is trying to do, they ARE sites belonging to recognized international purveyors of some fairly high-ticket items. If you can get your principals to look at those sites and others similar with open minds (problematic, perhaps) they MIGHT just see what you're getting at....
Best of luck to you....
I did ask them if they printed their flyers on that color. lol They said no... Go figure huh? lol
Thanks for your input,
--Zak
I may go to the house where the busisess resides, and sit with them and go through those (and similar) sites. Every site you mentioned, has every aspect of what I am trying to explain to them makes a good site. Maybe sitting with them and showing them some "high ticket" sites may knock some reason into them.
That's part of it... their not selling $29 trinkets here. I think this is why I find it so sad to see what they want as far as a website. It is really almost heart-breaking when you know their products are so beautiful... lol
The color they wanted is not a web safe color and may display in odd colors in some browsers--like orange or some other color. I would get the color as close as possible and also tell them whatever color they want may not show up the same shade or hue on other browsers either (colors are darker on a Mac than a PC--or is it the other way around?)
You might plug into Browser Cam and test the site on several different systems and browsers and show them the various outputs and resolutions.
Find out what his computer system/browser is then show him the market share of that computer.
If none of this works I agree with getting him to sign a release form if he doesn't follow your advice. Charge him extra for this extra "eductional" advice too. You're not running a school, you're trying to build a web site.
this is what I would do too
then I'd print out a screen dump of the two pages and present them to the client with one of their flyers in there too.
Do your very best to incorporate as many of their ideas as possible in both ... while trying to make both look as nice and in keeping with the product as possible.
Sometimes, just a "feel" is all that is needed to make someone happy. Can you keep the "feel" of their concept withot delivering the whole enchilada their way? Its a tough thing to deliver if you aren't able to wrap your mind around it, but it can be done.
Good luck, working with someone stuck on certain ideas can be difficult. I've had experience with this in the past in other media ... and its not easy. Oftentimes though, both sides have to think outside the box ... not just the guy your pitching to.
Back to topic:
I too like the "two versions" idea. If they look at both, and THEN still choose the "50s" one, you at least know exactly what you're dealing with....
Sort of an "I told you so" after you have their check, of course. "Alternate style sheet? Oh, That's mine... I did it on my own time to use while developing your site to make it easier on my own eyes. Would you like to buy it?" :)
Jim
AND I am setting up an appointment to go to their house and show them some very successful sites. All this combined I think may just get them a site they are happy with, as well as keeping the web-surfer in all of us happy. Thanks everyone.. I will post back later and let you all know how it goes!
-- Zak
Viewing the site on different systems will help prove the point, but you could go one better and show them it on different monitors. I've had cases where a colour scheme that I thought contrasted well was actually barely legible on a different type of monitor.
Based on my own experience, when a client is presented with more than one design, they invariably select the worst of the bunch.
Maybe you'll have better luck.
Just to warn you …Based on my own experience, when a client is presented with more than one design, they invariably select the worst of the bunch.
Maybe you'll have better luck.
Let's hope not... lol I am almost finished with the page they "want" ... ikkk is all I have to say... Next up ... some variety..
Viewing the site on different systems will help prove the point, but you could go one better and show them it on different monitors. I've had cases where a colour scheme that I thought contrasted well was actually barely legible on a different type of monitor.
Actuall we run all Mac's here at my "real" job with all flat screens. All except for one person with a CRT. It looks MORE horrid on that CRT if that's imaginable. I'm going take your advice and call my wife and have some of her people at one of the smaller offices she takes care of view it, and see what it looks like. Some of them are still on Win95, so their machines & monitors are ancient.
I'm going to have a crap-load of stuff to take to them today! Thanks again everyone!
-- Zak
Based on my own experience, when a client is presented with more than one design, they invariably select the worst of the bunch.
Very true. That is why my suggestion was to show the alternatives to current and potential customers and get their feedback.
Perhaps the client is right and the customers love it. Perhaps the designer is right and they'll hate it.
The client is more likely to listen to customers than "some geeky web designer who doesn't know anything about our business."
Moreover, they may perceive this as you "fighting" them, even if they never say so.
Worse yet, you are wasting far too much time wrangling over something you should have resolved and moved on.
An worst of all, please take this constructively, this may reflect an aspect of your ego that requires maturation.
By this last I mean do not confuse what you KNOW with what you WANT. It is EGO that tells you you came up with the best solution, and nothing else will do. It is EXPERIENCE that tells you there is always another solution that's as good as your initial one.
A good designer can take any color set and make it work. There truly are no terrible colors, just colors used terribly. If you do not accept this reality, this is going to come up again and again and again, and it's going to frustrate you to no end.
Take this scenario, it is very common: "Thank you for your time designer, but we are paying you to do what WE want, so please listen to us (or you won't get paid.")
Given this scenario, it is VERY likely your ego is going to get bruised and you are going to proceed "under internal protest." If you do that, every step you take on this project is going to nag and hurt. It is going to affect the overall outcome, I promise you.
So. Be a good designer. Take their ugly color scheme and make something beautiful. MAKE IT WORK. It's what you're paid to do, and if you're good - you CAN. :-D
“We want the backdrop to be the same as the backdrop in our booths at our shows as to maintain our identity. We also need to have black text. We don’t want cream, or anything like that.”
Something to that effect anyway.
My ego has nothing to do with this. I am very open minded, otherwise I wouldn’t have posted looking for a solution, I simply would have argued with the customer telling them I am right .. End of story. You say “make it work”... I have nothing to work WITH. They told me they want a solid bg in that color without even the exception of letting me put a different color table in there, AND nothing but black text will do. With that said, your right, I have a choice. To “make it work” and keep them happy at this point, I either put that background in with black text... or I put that background in with black text.
I am working on a different index as we speak, same color theme, just a little more friendly on the eye... But then this was explained in earlier posts. Would this not be considered “Making it work”?
No offense, but before you post and make it sound like this is simply a preference issue, and that my ego is preventing me from seeing a good idea, consider that the site layout and color set would be completely different if it were up to me. However, I am not the type to force vision on someone. I am merely trying to point out practicality issues to them. Not
personal preferences.
Regards,
-- Zak
I am saying the strictures placed on this project are your challenge, that's just the way it is. The parameters the customer presents you with are your limited palette. You can do it, but you must get past why you think it's wrong, why you think it won't work. Sometimes it sucks, but if you get past it, you come out on the other side knowing you did something you thought wasn't possible.
-- Zak
