Logo/Design/Development/Mobile in 10 Days
The following timing outline was part of a project brief I received on February 23 2010.
TIMING:The website was being built from scratch, based on some eight balsamiq wireframes, with some direction on the logo and no information about the mobile site.
02/23/2010 – Agreement to brief and hourly rate
02/25/2010 – Design Review # 1 – Logo, Website
02/30/2010 – Design Review # 2 – Logo, Website, mobile interface
03/01/2010 – Final Graphics aligned to and logo files delivered
03/03/2010 – HTML/CSS completed
Clients From Hell
All RSS Feeds
Client: ”So I just wrote my first post on the blog you made for us. Can you publish it to all RSS feeds?”
Me: ”Do you mean publish it to your RSS feed? Because that happens automatically.”
Client: ”No, I mean ALL RSS feeds. Like every one on the internet.”
Me: ”That’s not possible.”
Client: ”Yes it is, I read an article about how RSS is the equivalent of newspapers on the internet, so if I post something everyone on the internet should see it, just like everyone reading a newspaper would see the front page.”
Me: ”Er… that’s not really true, that’s not how RSS works.”
Client: ”Well then this whole “blog” thing isn’t what I paid you to do, then, is it?”
Clients From Hell
Me: ”Your employees are saying they can’t get on the internet.”
Client: ”Did they restart?”
Me: ”Yes, but the problem is the wireless is not connected to the internet. Did you change something?”
Client: ”Oh, yeah you have to plug them in to ethernets. I turned the wireless off because someone could hack into our wireless.”
Me: ”We use 256-bit encryption, that’s not possible. Anyway, you didn’t pay the guy that wired the place, so he never terminated most of the cables.”
Client: ”Just go terminate it and connect it to the server.”
Me: ”I’m a programmer, not a networker, and I don’t have the equipment to tone and terminate. Besides, we couldn’t find those cables, which is the reason we put them on the wireless anyway. And you don’t connect the ethernet to the server.”
Client: ”Whatever, just figure it out. We can’t have people hacking our wireless.”
Me: ”So really, you want to block someone from sitting in the parking lot and using the internet, blocking your employees from working in the process?”
Client: ”Someone hacked my wireless at home.”
Me: ”Now we’re getting to the root of the problem.”
Make the user work for it!
Client: ”I want you to put the search box at the bottom of my website. I’m tired of all those websites that have them at the top, it’s way too ‘in your face’. I want my visitors to really want to search.”
Me: ”Umm..you want them to search for the search box?”
Client: ”Exactly.”
Clients from Hell
Client: “I would like to have our home page come up with some information in a hockey puck that flies around the screen. I’d like the user to have to chase the puck with a hockey stick for a cursor and whack it to let them in the site.”
Me: “I’m going to do everything in my power to talk you out of doing that.”
Marketing Emails
“We want to know who opens the emailer and when they do we want to hit them with another email straight away, striking while the iron is hot. And for those who don’t open it we’ll send them an email too asking why they didn’t open it.”
Clients from Hell
A client recently hired me to create a social networking site, and had an issue with friend approval.
Client: “I like Facebook, but I don’t like having to approve friends.”
Me: “What do you mean?”
Client: “It takes too long for someone to approve me. I want on my site for all friend requests to be automatically approved.”
Me: “What if the user doesn’t know or want the individual to be their friend?”
Client: “Who doesn’t like having lots of friends?”
Clients From Hell
Business Meeting Subject: New Automation Software.
Client: “I want you to write a software package that will allow us to create client websites automatically. The site needs to allow for multiple upsells after the checkout is complete. And I want to build 5000 a week for clients free and give them away. I need that in 30 days.”
Me: “We can do that but given the complexity of the checkout process, upsell logic (actually lack thereof, every deal was different), and conversion of current clients to the new system we will need at least 90 days to bring this online.”
Client: “I setup a MySpace account and have the frontend ready to go, all you need is to glue the cart to it. Surely you can do that in few days?”
Me: “Myspace?”
Client: “That’s right.”
Me: “And you want a cart in Myspace?”
Client: “You got it…”
