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Your Client Problems Solved: Call for questions

Posted by Andrew Faulkner on August 3rd, 2007.

Andrew Faulkner is the admin at fadtastic. Andrew prides himself on standards-based, accessible web design in the city of Nottingham, UK. He believes in aesthetically pleasing accessible design and that 'standards compliant does not equal boring.'

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Continually having problems with clients? Problems with the things they say, do or expect? Join the club.

I invite you all to submit any (serious) questions relating to client liaison or management. I’ll get some of my acquaintances to aid me in providing a list of possible solutions and publish it right here next week. I’ll try to publish win-win solutions to the most niggly of issues.

I’ll set the ball rolling:

What do you say to clients that have heard that PageRank is the be all and end all to internet marketing?

Over to you. Simply make a comment below. Hopefully we’ll grow this into valuable resource for web designers.

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16 Responses to Your Client Problems Solved: Call for questions

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Why do clients think they know more than the designer sometimes?

J Phill
August 3rd, 2007
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How do you handle a situation where you propose a design and the client’s feedback is along the lines of "we rather it look just like our brochure" which is poorly done and does not translate well to the web?

Ryan
August 3rd, 2007
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Heres a few I get from time to time: 

What is the average screen resolution for my users!?

Can you change the layout now that you’ve designed it and we’ve given you the content which doesn’t match the design?

We want some images but we don’t have the budget to buy them. Can you put some images in?

Please can you make our website no. 1 in google?!

Please can you out-date your design so it fits in with our out of date logo?

 

 

 

Matt Davies
August 3rd, 2007
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Thanks for the questions so far. Looking forward to helping you all out with these.

Andrew Faulkner
August 3rd, 2007
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Ryan’s question: <blockquote>How do you handle a situation where you propose a design and the client’s feedback is along the lines of "we rather it look just like our brochure" which is poorly done and does not translate well to the web?</blockquote>Answer:Create a PDF of the brochure and put it on the web as an inline frame ORExplain the difference between web layout and print layout AND point out the technical reasons why the layout is poor emphasizing user friendlinessIn a nutshell, respect the client’s aesthetic choices and emphasize the business objectives.   

Thurston Consulting
August 3rd, 2007
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"Whilst pagerank is important, it is something that is not determined by me, or by you.  First, let’s focus on the things that you can control - provide rich content that is relevant to your users.  Then, let’s look at what I can control: semantically coding your website.  I’ll think you’ll find that when we’re done we’re going to have a site that is well positioned to be accessed by search engines.  Then, let’s talk about your marketing strategy … ‘

David Horn
August 3rd, 2007
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oh - sorry, I was providing an answer, rather than asking the questions!  I’ll read closer next time … !

David Horn
August 3rd, 2007
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Wow - thanks for the answers! I shall use these as part of the finished piece. Any more questions, folks? Don’t be shy.

Andrew Faulkner
August 3rd, 2007
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how do you get a client to pay when they stopped answering your phonecalls and emails as soon as you sent the invoice.

bob
August 3rd, 2007
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I just wrote about a problem I had with scope creep (story).My question: Did I handle it well?

Ted Goas
August 3rd, 2007
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How does one convince a client that their interior designer, uber-creative scrap-book-a-holic, etc., etc, friend isn’t a web designer, and their suggestions, while nice, won’t always work for the web (without resorting to calling them all idiots, and/or threatening death upon the next person that suggests paint sample colors for the web)?

Chris
August 4th, 2007
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How do you know when to turn a potential client down, especially when you could use the money or are first starting out?

Vincent
August 4th, 2007
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Well I just have stored a few highly competitive queries with sites with a low pagerank performing well…

Marie-AUde
August 4th, 2007
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How do you handle clients that expect you to redesign their donor’s advertisements before being inserted into your client’s project?

A.R.
August 4th, 2007
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*Rant in () added for dramatic effect.

Chris
August 6th, 2007
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What happens when the marketing department at your organisation insists on having Click Here for every link? How do I explain that’s a bad thing to do? They see it as a call to action.

Anonymous
August 12th, 2007
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