To refuse or not to refuse - or: Should Clients (3) have their way?
"I want an accessible website"
"No, I don't like it this way - I want popups!"
"No, I don't like it this way, I want you to take this image and put it online. No, I only want the image, nothing else. Why wouldn't that be accessible? I can see the image just fine. Enough of it now! Image!"
"No, I dont like it this way. I want a layout just like the paper-flyer I had designed by a graphics artist. Well of course I know that the medium is a different one, of course I know that the possibilities are different and you need to adapt - what d'ya think, that I'm stupid? But frankly - I don't care. I want my paper-flyer online. And I want it to look exactly like it would on paper. 'nouff said"
"No, I don't think you heard me. I don't like it this way. I don't want to scroll down. And please, I want the page to fill the screen horizontally. On the other hand I want the text to be even narrower. Would you please work some magic?"
"I believe you're incompetent. I said I don't want to scroll down. I prefer to have all the content in a little, tiny part of the window, and when there are unusable, usability-nightmare-scrollbars there that's just fine with me. I probably just wanted to make a point."
"Yes, I'm aware that you're probably beginning to notice that I don't care a single bit about my handicapped readers and that I don't even know what accessability means, it's just - when I was talking to the CEO about the website-project I thought it sounded pretty cool"
"Yeah well, I kept bugging you for weeks to come up with a color combination that at least wasn't soooo ugly, because it was really hard to find colors that would match the pseudo-gold from my paper-flyer. But now that I have my CMS I'm using all the features it has to make the site look ugly by using 10 different colors (that don't go well together at all) on every page. I guess you can't use my site as a reference after all, huh?"
Should clients really have their way? Is it better to refuse and to lose a customer, or to deliver a product where you know it's bad, but it's exactly what the client wants (and despite all the consulting we did he didn't want it any other way)?
This project taught us a lot. I'm not sure it was worth it, though.
"No, I don't like it this way - I want popups!"
"No, I don't like it this way, I want you to take this image and put it online. No, I only want the image, nothing else. Why wouldn't that be accessible? I can see the image just fine. Enough of it now! Image!"
"No, I dont like it this way. I want a layout just like the paper-flyer I had designed by a graphics artist. Well of course I know that the medium is a different one, of course I know that the possibilities are different and you need to adapt - what d'ya think, that I'm stupid? But frankly - I don't care. I want my paper-flyer online. And I want it to look exactly like it would on paper. 'nouff said"
"No, I don't think you heard me. I don't like it this way. I don't want to scroll down. And please, I want the page to fill the screen horizontally. On the other hand I want the text to be even narrower. Would you please work some magic?"
"I believe you're incompetent. I said I don't want to scroll down. I prefer to have all the content in a little, tiny part of the window, and when there are unusable, usability-nightmare-scrollbars there that's just fine with me. I probably just wanted to make a point."
"Yes, I'm aware that you're probably beginning to notice that I don't care a single bit about my handicapped readers and that I don't even know what accessability means, it's just - when I was talking to the CEO about the website-project I thought it sounded pretty cool"
"Yeah well, I kept bugging you for weeks to come up with a color combination that at least wasn't soooo ugly, because it was really hard to find colors that would match the pseudo-gold from my paper-flyer. But now that I have my CMS I'm using all the features it has to make the site look ugly by using 10 different colors (that don't go well together at all) on every page. I guess you can't use my site as a reference after all, huh?"
Should clients really have their way? Is it better to refuse and to lose a customer, or to deliver a product where you know it's bad, but it's exactly what the client wants (and despite all the consulting we did he didn't want it any other way)?
This project taught us a lot. I'm not sure it was worth it, though.
