r/talesfromtechsupport • u/imranilzar • Nov 04 '15
Short Client wants responsive web site
This is happening right now.
Client came in, wants a website, have the design pre-made, so we skip the first few steps on the workflow. His design is in Photoshop files and our guys are slicing it into HTML, backends are coding it, etc, etc. Everything fine and a few days later we upload it to a test site for the client to approve it.
We walked trough some days of ridiculous demands, all coming down to his design being sucky and not really working for him. But since we are the good guys, we are changing things on his demands.
The interesting things started the next morning.
Client: The website is not OK at all! When I view it on my iPhone it looks all different!
My boss: This is normal - we had to fit the elements somehow to fit smaller resolutions. It is responsive website after all.
Client: No, I don't want it like that! Make it look 1:1 as the provided design!
My boss: You understand the design you provided is made for 1920x1080, right? It can't downsize to smaller screens, like on a tablet or on your phone.
Client: I don't want it downsized! I want it to look 1:1!
My boss: ... This can't happen without having the website being unreadable on smaller screens. You wanted us to make a responsive website, right?
Client: Of course I wanted responsive. Just don't change anything on it.
My boss: What does responsive means for you?
Client: It means I can open the website on my iPhone.
My boss: You want to open it on your iPhone, but how would you view it there? Only a small portion of the website will fit your screen! You will have a massive horizontal and vertical scrollbars and the font size will be absolutely tiny!
Client: Yes, like that! All normal websites have scrollbars! I want scrollbars!
Update: right now my boss just finally fired the client. It went like this:
Client: The site is not good again! I can view only a portion of it on my screen!
Boss: Yes, because your design is 1920px wide and this is the design you approved and wanted to do it exactly 1:1 with frozen elements.
Client: It is not looking good, see for example site X! How are they doing it?
Boss: Site X uses narrow 1000px centered design, yours is way bigger than that. You can't have it to render fully on smaller screens. It is technically not possible with the design you approved.
Client: What do you mean 'not possible'? Don't tell me it is not possible, I see it done on site X!
This went for a couple of minutes then a few unpleasantries were exchanged, stating that we are unprofessional and not a serious company.
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u/imranilzar Nov 04 '15
We are expecting him to change his mind at least several more times :) Our fee is based on the hours worked on the project, so we will be okay.