Lea de Groot wrote:


On 27/02/2006, at 4:08 PM, Ben Buchanan wrote:

Not to mention the fact that the people who implemented those
bohemoths can't always separate standards advice from personal
vilification - no matter how polite, rational, independently
verfiable...


I think its important to understand that, for a lot of people who actually work on a site, when you say "your site doesn't validate/ isn't accessible/ doesn't work in my browser" what they hear is "your skills are no good / you don't know how to do your job/ say goodbye to that next payrise" It takes incredible tact to tell people what a problem is without making it feel to them like a personal attack - and I don't know about you, but I'm a geek; tact isn't on my strong list :)

I'm not saying "don't confront" - no way! But I am saying that if you can't reach the right audience (the people who sign off on the bills, quite often, not the developer) then don't be surprised when they act like you have hit them in the face with a wet fish.

Actually, Sunny, have you thought about maybe you hit a home run and got all the guy's hot buttons? Maybe (s)he knew all those things were a problem and couldn't bear them being brought up by (cough, splutter) a *customer*
<g>

Lea
~ although I still can't believe the gall of a response like that: 'your problems with our site are your own problem.' Amazing! Can you imagine going into a supermarket and, upon asking for help finding the eggs, being told that the supermarket layout is your problem; find them yourself? <g>


There are so many ins and outs to this. Basically, even if you have a very good client interface protocol, and you are not finding fault with their work, even when they are working with you and you are refining their design, everyone has so much *personal* investment in their design, it's very hard to be constantly presenting the business case for why you are doing what you are doing.

I find myself constantly inheriting the hidden web wannabe in projects lately. They are not there during the initial discussion and signoff with the client, but somehow the client manages to bring them on board, and they seem to live in a world of complete creative freedom where there are no basic engineering principles to adhere too (accessibility, standards, usability, topography, etc).

What makes it worse, is that when you have to cover the basics in this area they want a private 24/7 mentoring relationship, or the whole thing transmitted to them in a day or two, when it takes ages of practice and study to get to this level, and when you say there are undergraduate and post graduate degrees on these topics, and they are so large it takes lots of dedicated time to understand, they are left highly offended.

Oh, and just as a pointer on supermarket design, there are many deliberately seemingly irrational locations of items in a supermarket so that it does not aid the user to easily find what they want, so that they have to walk past many other items, which they may not usually walk past, in the hope that they will purchase more items just buy the distance walked and items browsed. That is why milk, which is one of the most commonly purchased items is in a shelf usually the most further from the checkout.

Regards
Geoff
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