Comments on: A client's work is never done

By: e okul

e okul — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 07:38:01 +0000

Simon – that’s an excellent point you’ve made. Sometimes a client not only has to produce a website, they have to sell it internally too. It seems illogical, but some people (usually senior decision makers that are suspicious of the internet) won’t take a website seriously, despite the clear advantages of doing it properly.
To some extent, they can be persuaded by stats and figures, but it can be difficult to manage that internal battle and deliver your responsibilities on a website at the same time.
It’s worth doing though – every time I’ve been able to demonstrate increased revenue or productivity which can be directly attributed to the new website. It’s worth remembering when you are wading through designs and quibbling over details in the technical spec, that that’s the most important outcome at the end of the day

By: tedavisi

tedavisi — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:19:44 +0000

Hi, To some extent, they can be persuaded by stats and figures, but it can be difficult to manage that internal battle and deliver your responsibilities on a website at the same time.

By: e-okul

e-okul — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 02:09:05 +0000

To some extent, they can be persuaded by stats and figures, but it can be difficult to manage that internal battle and deliver your responsibilities on a website at the same time.

By: e-okul

e-okul — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:34:49 +0000

The main problem arises here that designer supposes to be the interpreter, and the client the author. But it is not so in the real world, clients cannot be authors if they cannot support that role, and clients tend toquestion what the designer interprets as what the client needs.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Tue, 01 May 2007 16:15:11 +0000

The flip side to all this, especially with smaller clients is when you educate them in the above they often feel completely over whelmed in the shear scale of the responsibilities that they must part shoulder with the designer/developer in order to produce a successful and profitable venture, in my experience more than often than not, the client then source’s a designer/developer with the promise the end product will be a success regardless, who agenda is in the short term monies to be made.
The bitter sweetness comes when you touch base with the site and/or client little further down the line to find that their web designer/developer has run off or no longer is able to pick up emails and the site is on par with the late 90′s
Geoff

By: Graeme

Graeme — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 09:10:16 +0000

Simon – that’s an excellent point you’ve made. Sometimes a client not only has to produce a website, they have to sell it internally too. It seems illogical, but some people (usually senior decision makers that are suspicious of the internet) won’t take a website seriously, despite the clear advantages of doing it properly. To some extent, they can be persuaded by stats and figures, but it can be difficult to manage that internal battle and deliver your responsibilities on a website at the same time. It’s worth doing though – every time I’ve been able to demonstrate increased revenue or productivity which can be directly attributed to the new website. It’s worth remembering when you are wading through designs and quibbling over details in the technical spec, that that’s the most important outcome at the end of the day.

By: Johan

Johan — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 13:23:31 +0000

By: Andrew Armitage

Andrew Armitage — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 19:10:33 +0000

Excellent article and one that I will definitely share with clients. The difficulty with many small businesses is that there's still a lot that haven't grasped the concept of a website. This is where as designers/developers, we should be offering help from the outset to educate them so that as our technical workload declines, we replace this with practical support and advice, and clients will keep coming back to us.

By: Simon Griffiths

Simon Griffiths — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 12:44:04 +0000

For a website owners point of view this could seem a little bit negative. I can just see all the clients you may have seeing this and saying that they are not up to the commitment. To counter this I have to say that the company I work for have 3 sites, for various divisions of the company, the newest being http://www.brdatasystems.com.au (sorry I had to add that in as I have just made that live and am proud of it, as well as looking for inbound links - what Paul says in action). The company I work for produces metal boxes basically, and sells them predominantly to electricians. Not your typical idea of web users. However by keeping it fresh, up to date and constantly monitoring stats and increasing usability, it probably generates more new contacts than our sales team of 18 people. Yes it takes someones time to monitor and tweak, but look at what a maintained site is doing. The tricky bit is then converting those contacts in informational sites such as ours. Unfortunately e-commerce is a bit tricky as we work through wholesale chains, which means that we rely on our sales team to quickly follow up leads, and depending on the person this may or may not happen. In truth the hardest part of the work is often here. Persauding the sales team to embrace the web. For my position this actually takes more time than all the monitoring and maintaining we do, and can be a good deal more frustrating, but just think of the benefits.

By: Graeme

Graeme — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:44:10 +0000

Spot on! As a client who is experienced in working with agencies, I’m under no illusion about how much effort is required from my side, especially where content is concerned. And it’s obviously a big issue as a couple of agencies I’ve worked with recently have been at pains to point out that they could turn work around quickly, but they were concerned about our ability to do likewise.It’s definitely an issue worth raising – I’m always impressed by agencies that approach projects in this level of detail. Most don’t even mention it, leaving the client to sort themselves out. But agencies have the greater experience in these matters and by pointing out the client’s responsibilities up front, you can save a lot of hassle later. Don’t assume they know what they are doing, just because they’re paying!