В защиту сложных клиентов |
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In Defense of Difficult Clients | ||
There’s a certain breed of clients that lives in the past: web 1.0 clients in a web 2.0 world. They can be a nightmare to work for, and they often end up commissioning horrendous sites that pollute our precious internet. It might seem easy to just pretend they don’t exist, or, worse still, to do as they ask, but—brace yourself—these clients are the stepping stones to enlightenment. It can be frustrating to work for clients who force us to justify our strongly held beliefs, but, budget permitting, it may still be worthwhile. | Существует особая порода клиентов, которые живут в прошлом: клиенты web 1.0 в мире web 2.0. Работать на них - настоящий кошмар, к тому же с ними частенько случается такое, что они создают ужасные сайты, загрязняя тем самым наш драгоценный Интернет. Казалось бы, легко притвориться, что их просто не существует, или в крайнем случае сделать то, о чем они просят, но задумайтесь на минутку, такие клиенты препятствуют просвещению. Работа на клиентов, которые постоянно заставляют нас доказывать правоту всего, во что мы свято верим, может повергать в депрессию, но, с точки зрения бюджета, она, конечно, может иметь смысл. | |
The salt of the earth | ||
“[T]hese few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a stagnant pool…. There is only too great a tendency in the best beliefs and practices to degenerate into the mechanical…” —John Stuart Mill, On Liberty | ||
J. S. Mill may have died many years before the birth of the internet, but that’s not to say he can’t teach us a few things about dealing with clients who need to be educated. Only by being made to question our own beliefs can we prevent them from becoming dogma—and difficult clients certainly ask plenty of questions. | ||
These clients represent the ultimate test: They require that we explain why frames are bad. Why cross-browser compatibility is a serious issue. Why the use of “click here” is considered inappropriate. Why we now consider the web to be a medium in which vertical scrolling is acceptable. They test our knowledge and they test our patience. | ||
We all know why our methods are best practices, but can we justify them? Because there’s no getting unjustified statements past these clients, and there’s no bamboozling them with buzz phrases and marketing spiel. You have to justify each of your points in plain, simple English, whether it’s a usability concern, a standards issue, or a design choice. | ||
Why enlightenment matters | ||
The big clients—the clients who are already paying megabucks—often tend to believe whatever you say. You’re the expert and they’re the client, and you’re implicitly right because it says so in the last “0” on that invoice. If you weren’t, they’d feel it was money poorly spent, and nobody wants to admit to a bad investment—so nine times out of ten they’ll take your word as gospel. |
— Капризных? — afriki