The Client Is Not Always Right
Every person has heard the term “the customer is always right.” Before becoming a designer I believed this pretty strongly, however, after having clients and working hard to try and perfect my craft, that term seems far from correct now. Sometimes you get clients that are very receptive to new ideas, and actually like learning something about the web. But, others try and come to the table, throwing around buzzwords, like they know the web as well as designers who spend 10+ hours a day on the web.
When meeting new clients, I always like to listen to what the client has to say. I like to hear their perceptions of the web, and how they think having a website wil help their business out. After the listening part, I then chime in on things that I felt that they misunderstand about the web, and help them better understand things about the web, that could prove to be beneficial to their business.
An example of this, was a client that I had a while back who wanted an all flash site (and they actually bought a template for me to customize), yet the core audience for their site would be people ages [roughly] 40 and older. I was non-hesitant to let them know the downsides to having a flash site with that type of audience, and the types of issues that it would pose with accessibility.
The client was very receptive to my recommendations, especially because I sent articles backing up my statements so that they could further learn about why a flash site would not have been ideal for the project.
My overall point is that clients need education sometimes, and just because they approach a designer with a good price tag does not always mean we should bow down and do everything they want when it goes against the standard practices that we are used to. If they’re smart, they will find a designer looking for help to solve a problem, and not just paying to get something done.
4 Comments
Look, I don’t know who that company was or what their product was about, but I don’t really get it. I just turned 37 the other day, so… what, I can’t use Flash? I remember when I was 20, thinking the world would end at 30. It’s just not true. As technology evolves, so should we, whatever our age is.
I’ve no doubt that you were able to dig up plenty of articles saying that such and such target audience is digitally illiterate, but come on… Those are the same articles that say people are still on 800×600. If I see someone’s display still set at that rez, I just slap them in the face and change the settings myself (well, you know what I mean).
You do have a point: the customer isn’t always right, but in this case that would be the customer who refuses to look at a site because he thinks there’s some kind of learning curve to the technology used behind it.
Many of my (often younger) friends have no idea what I’m talking about half the time. They don’t even recognize an RSS button. But I just have to see that as my task to educate them then. I know, it’s a crusade
Okay, reading over this again, I have to apologize for the rant-ish tone in this (I hope you appreciate my entry here as a contribution to discussion, not a rant), but it just pains me to see people ‘stay behind’ like this. And the decision made here just encourages this (even though as a short-term business decision it may probably even have been the right one).
Yes, educate, but educate our end-users then, that’s what I’m saying.
Nils, of course I didn’t get into a ton of specifics with the project mentioned above, because I’m trying to stay as vague as possible.
I completely understand your point, however, certain technologies are for certain projects. Flash, does not belong in every kind of project, and this was one of them. Their site was very niche and specific in what they wanted, however, it was made obvious that they wanted flash for the “cool factor” and not because it would have helped meet the business goals of this project.
So don’t get me wrong, I am all about pushing forward with technology, however, some aspects of the web do not belong in every single project. And I did not believe that flash was suited for this project. I would rather play it safe and know that close to 100% of the visitors could use this site, rather than gambling and having only 90% be able to use the site.
Sure, fair enough. I wasn’t fishing for details, and I’m sure you’ve made the best decision for this company. Using a technique just because it’s cool (or worse: because you’ve heard it’s cool) is always wrong. Like I said, apologies for how my comment may have sounded. I just have strong convictions, and I’m happy to see you have too
And sometimes the client can’t be educated at all and all you can do is walk. The anecdotes in this article remind me why I don’t particularly miss the full-time freelance life!