[Sigia-l] Need published proof that scrolling text is not good

[Juan Ruiz]

I agree with Peter. Pick your battles! Many of us have encounter this
situation where the most usable and practicable solution is not well
received by our clients due to the fact that they have a particular
design already in mind, and they expect us to work around that design.

On a previous post (I can't remember who sent it), it was mentioned that
if you really tried to convinced the client that the solution you are
proposing is better (due to your industry experience, research, etc) but
the client won't accept it (no matter what), then, have them sign a
document indicating that you have done your work to your best efforts,
and that if in the future, the final design proves to be inefficient, it
was because of client's decision and not yours (you can rephrase it of
course, you get the idea).

Good luck,
-Juan


-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On
Behalf Of Peter Van Dijck
Sent: Thursday, 6 December 2007 9:55 PM
To: Jared M. Spool
Cc: Janet Wallace; sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Need published proof that scrolling text is not
good

It is possible that the client has latched onto this as something they
like and they want to defend, or else they'll feel they "loose
control" of the project.

1. If you were to give in (against your better judgement), would the
site be unusable? If so, you might have to do this (ie. pick your
battles).
2. If you use the "expert opinion" card (as you want to), you might
make the situation worse by putting the client in a defensive
position.
3. Is there a way of scrolling that you can live with?
4. There are of course a lot of tricks. "Experts say it's bad". "It's
technically not feasible before launch". "Let's put it in release 2".
"Let's vote on it" (sets a BAD precendent) "Let's test it with users".
"Let's ask users what they think" And so on...

These situations indeed frustrating.

I had a similar situation recently: a client had a rather terrible
design idea, I was called in and proposed to start from scratch, and
everything seemed to go smooth. Then, out of the blue, a week before
the deadline, the client called in higher powers (something like: "I
presented my original idea to the CEO and he agrees with me.").

So I had no choice but to go with it (or else risk a battle of wills
that I would have lost) and try to limit the damage. The end result is
still an acceptable UI, although I would have designed it differently
myself.

What I learned from that was this: I hadn't read the situation well
enough when I came in. When I proposed to start from scratch and that
seemed to be ok, I underestimated the feeling of ownership that
clients can have about their own design ideas. Sometimes there's just
not much more you can do.

So there you go.

Good luck!
Peter