How to Drive your Website Developer Insane: A Primer
Thursday, March 23, 2006An oft-quoted nugget of wisdom in the consumer world is, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” While this is certainly true for situations such as getting the wrong cup of coffee, putting together a puzzle only to find the last piece missing, or demanding that your meal be free because you found a hair in the salad you already finished eating, sadly, the business world has largely turned its back on this philosophy. Many businesses, especially in the Web site design and development field, have overdone the “customer/client is always right” mantra and will cave in to your demands, nodding emphatically while looking for the closest window to hurl their fragile programmer bodies through. In fact, Web developers go to site design meetings expecting to be driven insane in any number of ways. No, really: we like it. So here are some tips to help you give us what we really want while surely amusing yourselves in the process.
1) Perfect the “concerned eyebrow crunch” and use it randomly. When the designer asks if you like your navigation how it is, even if you do, crunch your eyebrows and look concerned. Squint your eyes and half-mutter, “Ehhhhh…” non-committally. Do this again when they ask if you like their suggestions for changing the navigation. Few things are more confusing than random, concerned eyebrow crunching. We want to please you! Why won’t you let us?!
2) Interrupt your programmer’s overview of proposed section headers with the fact that you really want the focus to be on executive bios. You want huge pictures of you and your friends carefully selected high-ranking staff to be on the homepage. *Note: this works best if you and your staff have any/all of the following looks: a penchant for flannel, bad ties, weird facial hair, bad toupee, ill-fitting clothing, no women executives, no minorities, a really creepy smile.
3) Talk about how you’d like a complicated splash page for the site. Tell the developer you want anyone who tries to skip over the splash page immediately re-directed. Use the phrase “flash intro” and “no skip button” with a smile and pretend like you know what you’re talking about. Shoot down any proposal that does not include a splash page. Offer a tissue when the programmer starts to cry.
4) Use the word “homepage” liberally. Insist that any and every page of the site has a link back to the homepage, using that exact phrase. Some suggested dialogue: “If we don’t say ‘homepage’ and have link back to the ‘homepage’ then no one will know how to get back to our ‘homepage.’ We really need to have a ‘homepage’ link on every page. This is a must-have item.” For fun, count the number of times the programmer visibly twitches uncomfortably after the word “homepage.” If you can get the count over 10, buy yourself a candy bar as a reward.
5) Constantly bring up your expert programmer son/cousin/close family friend. Make one up if you don’t really have one! Be sure to give them the most annoying qualities possible and make sure they always give the opposite advice of the programmer actually working on the project. This programmer wants to do the site in PHP? Well, your obscure relative says ASP is really better. Use the most condescending tone possible and trail off at the end, leaving an uncomfortable silence. Try undermining the programmer on such topics as site security, hosting choice, use of javascript, cross-browser css and anything having to do with e-mail. Insert concerned eyebrow crunching where necessary to punctuate your disdain of the programmer’s suggestions.
6) Demand that your site show up first in a google search, no matter what your industry. If you sell trash bags, you want to be first for trash bags, trash cans, and anytime anyone searches for anything on the web while even thinking about trash. While you’re at it, say you want to be first in Yahoo too. Balk at the proposed cost for such services. Set your search engine budget ridiculously low and threaten to cancel the project if your search goals aren’t met. Never mind if it’s actually impossible to guarantee being first on a google search – make sure your programmer knows that there are at least three other firms who promise this goal in writing. Should your programmer respond by trying to stab him or herself in the eye with a sharpened pencil, buy yourself several boxes of Girl Scout cookies and call it a day. You’ve won!
Used alone or combined, any of these tips are guaranteed to make your next Web site meeting a thousand times more enjoyable.
*Disclaimer: We take no responsibility for the consequences of using these tips in the real world. You could be putting your life on the line here, not to mention the sanity of another human being. Well, we tried to warn you.
March 29th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Oh man this is evil stuff… ahaha
March 29th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
[…] How to Drive your Website Developer Insane […]
March 29th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
7) Post his Wordpress blog on digg so that it crashes or uses all his bandwidth.
March 30th, 2006 at 6:59 am
Hey! I think you guys sent copies of this to all of my clients, you bastards!
March 30th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
#8:
Tell the developer you want a Flash movie. When the developer tells you that if the Flash movie is a success and you will have to pay for additional bandwidth, act real stupid and tell them that bandwidth is not your problem and you’re not paying for it.
March 30th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
tell stupid people that request this stuff to go do it themselves.
March 30th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Read the quote providing 5 primary sections of content, each with 5 sub-sections of information. Provide 169 badly formatted word documents with images, boxes, tables and price lists and say I want it to look like that, with all the variations of blue/read and yellow highlighting I threw in.
Also include various movie files, unrelated document content and a hidden sub-sub-sub sections the deverloper didnt expect. Throw in a few comments regarding “link this pdf somewhere” or copy content from xyz.kom site to complete.
Ensure the developer knows that your losing sales because the new products are not up yet, just for ‘Pressure’ it makes us work harder for you!
Thanks, I needed this today. (Ah release)
March 30th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
It’s funny because it’s true! Digg has a tone of comments on this with extra ways to drive developers insane. Love the post.
March 30th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
Oh, God, I’m having flashbacks to my *entire* preprofessional career…
March 30th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. At least four of those things happened to me _this week_.
March 30th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
[…] How to Drive your Website Developer Insane: A Primer […]
March 30th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
Man! You’ve found the things not to tell to a webdevelopper. This article is to be destrcuted, burned, destroyed… anything but it MUST desepear!
March 30th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
#9:
Ask the developer to modify the CSS to move an element one-half a pixel to the left or right. (This actually happened to my predecessor.)
March 30th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
#10 Require a website delivery date in the hot near future and then treat the supplying of web content as if it is the last item on your to do list, which it is.
March 30th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
#10:
Ask the developers to add a forum to the company website and get angry with the developers when you realize that your customers use the forum to talk to each other and give each other advice on how to solve problems with your product.
Ask developers to write “some lines of code” that will prevent anyone from using the forum for anything but praising your product.
#11:
Cough annoyingly and moan lots when listening to your developers plead with your insanity and ignorance.
“mmm… mmm… mmm… *cough* mmm… mmm… *blank stare* *cough*”
March 30th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Gosh . Happens to me all the time! Rex’s and Linda’s additions are also quite on the spot. Tell me, is it legal to carry a loaded gun into the next website meeting I am dragged to? You think it will be appropriate if I place it in a strategic (read: intimidating) position on the desk before initiating the conversation with the client? Or will they simply blink their eyes and pretend that they don’t know what it means??
March 31st, 2006 at 3:45 am
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March 31st, 2006 at 7:16 am
#12 show them Google `homepage` and tell them you want something “very simple, and yet classic” like it. When ready, frown and say you meant something like live.com
March 31st, 2006 at 8:08 am
I don’t get it. All of my clients do this.
March 31st, 2006 at 9:49 am
Oh that was tooo good. Spot on! Now if I could only share this with someone, but I’m the only webguy here! Damn.
March 31st, 2006 at 10:39 am
this article
March 31st, 2006 at 10:58 am
Ask your developer for a “chat room”!
March 31st, 2006 at 12:09 pm
#13- Tell your programmer that you don’t want to have to use links to navigate- you want to simply scroll and read the text on one page. Be sure to tell them that you really love your 640×480 screen resolution and that scrolling is troublesome because of the amount of time it takes to get between sections and the huge “gaps” on the screen. Demand that the gaps are removed and become indignant if the developer suggests improving screen resolution.
March 31st, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Hahahahah thanks for the great suggestions
And thank goodness my bosses have a sense of humor!
March 31st, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Ask for a feature to be added. Three months later, ask for it to be removed. Six months later, ask where it is. Repeat the cycle.
March 31st, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Insist that the developer create a page that hosts a podcast, even though you have no idea what it is. Make sure they have a link on this page to your homepage.
March 31st, 2006 at 6:23 pm
Anytime they ask for images from you, take forever to send them, and then send them files that are useless.
March 31st, 2006 at 6:39 pm
have a conference call with several other people from your company where all you do is argue and keep changing your minds and confuse the hell. don’t actually decide on anything. next time you meet, ask why none of the stuff you asked for is done
April 4th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
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