How to Drive Your Web Developer Insane: A Primer

From: http://digg.com/design/How_to_Drive_Your_Web_Developer_Insane:_A_Primer

An oft-quoted nugget of wisdom in the consumer world is, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” While this is certainly true for situations such as getting the wrong cup of coffee, putting together a puzzle only to find the last piece missing, or demanding that your meal be free because you found a hair in the salad you already finished eating, sadly, the business world has largely turned its back on this philosophy. Many businesses, especially in the Web site design and development field, have overdone the “customer/client is always right” mantra and will cave in to your demands, nodding emphatically while looking for the closest window to hurl their fragile programmer bodies through. In fact, Web developers go to site design meetings expecting to be driven insane in any number of ways. No, really: we like it. So here are some tips to help you give us what we really want while surely amusing yourselves in the process.

1) Perfect the “concerned eyebrow crunch” and use it randomly. When the designer asks if you like your navigation how it is, even if you do, crunch your eyebrows and look concerned. Squint your eyes and half-mutter, “Ehhhhh…” non-committally. Do this again when they ask if you like their suggestions for changing the navigation. Few things are more confusing than random, concerned eyebrow crunching. We want to please you! Why won’t you let us?!

2) Interrupt your programmer’s overview of proposed section headers with the fact that you really want the focus to be on executive bios. You want huge pictures of you and your friends carefully selected high-ranking staff to be on the homepage. *Note: this works best if you and your staff have any/all of the following looks: a penchant for flannel, bad ties, weird facial hair, bad toupee, ill-fitting clothing, no women executives, no minorities, a really creepy smile.

3) Talk about how you’d like a complicated splash page for the site. Tell the developer you want anyone who tries to skip over the splash page immediately re-directed. Use the phrase “flash intro” and “no skip button” with a smile and pretend like you know what you’re talking about. Shoot down any proposal that does not include a splash page. Offer a tissue when the programmer starts to cry.

4) Use the word “homepage” liberally. Insist that any and every page of the site has a link back to the homepage, using that exact phrase. Some suggested dialogue: “If we don’t say ‘homepage’ and have link back to the ‘homepage’ then no one will know how to get back to our ‘homepage.’ We really need to have a ‘homepage’ link on every page. This is a must-have item.” For fun, count the number of times the programmer visibly twitches uncomfortably after the word “homepage.” If you can get the count over 10, buy yourself a candy bar as a reward.

5) Constantly bring up your expert programmer son/cousin/close family friend. Make one up if you don’t really have one! Be sure to give them the most annoying qualities possible and make sure they always give the opposite advice of the programmer actually working on the project. This programmer wants to do the site in PHP? Well, your obscure relative says ASP is really better. Use the most condescending tone possible and trail off at the end, leaving an uncomfortable silence. Try undermining the programmer on such topics as site security, hosting choice, use of javascript, cross-browser css and anything having to do with e-mail. Insert concerned eyebrow crunching where necessary to punctuate your disdain of the programmer’s suggestions.

6) Demand that your site show up first in a google search, no matter what your industry. If you sell trash bags, you want to be first for trash bags, trash cans, and anytime anyone searches for anything on the web while even thinking about trash. While you’re at it, say you want to be first in Yahoo too. Balk at the proposed cost for such services. Set your search engine budget ridiculously low and threaten to cancel the project if your search goals aren’t met. Never mind if it’s actually impossible to guarantee being first on a google search – make sure your programmer knows that there are at least three other firms who promise this goal in writing. Should your programmer respond by trying to stab him or herself in the eye with a sharpened pencil, buy yourself several boxes of Girl Scout cookies and call it a day. You’ve won!

 

Ha ha!! Great list!! I like the squinty eyes feedback. That's a very common response to any design related work. I think every designer has seen that one.

I worked with someone who continually asked whether or not a thing was "XML based" in the concept phase.

Examples:

Us: "We're proposing a solution that involves interrelated websites with dynamic functionality to your specifications."

Person X: "Is it XML based?"

Us: "We're proposing a client/server approach that will communicate product updates via ETL messaging."

Person X: "Is it XML based?"

Us: "We can port the data from the legacy server, parse it with various tools, dupe the schema and report to the current production environment taking into consideration changed variables."

Person X: "Is it XML based?"

AUUUGGGHHH!!! Everything had to be XML based at the concept phase. As long as the application touched some XML format somewhere along it's SDLC things were okay. It was strange. The person didn't seem to know what "XML based" even meant. I think they were responding to a buzzword.

Your list fired the neurons that stored those sweet memories.

 

These days I liberally drop clients who annoy me, especially ones that insist on me doing extra for free because it's 'essential' to the site's design. Since when was an interactive, animating, talking guide walking across the page essential? (yes someone really asked me to do that... for free...). Another one that gets me is when they supply terrible quality photographs and then complain when they don't look good on the site.

 

My favorite is:

"I want it to look like <insert a competitor's website here>, but I don't want it to look like I copied it".