Collection of submitted anecdotes about difficult, unreasonable or clueless clients, mostly from freelance designers and developers.
HN links it as a collection of client horror stories from many contributors rather than one author, often as a humorous aside in threads about clients and customers.
I... I have to reply to this ridiculous article. First, i want to point this guy out. This guy is called Don Rainey and he works for Grotech Ventures http://www.grotech.com/ which like to show how many CEOs they have.
Straight up, grotech ventures doesn't know how to properly render websites, see here, http://www.procrastinatorstangent.com/rd/hacker_news/grotech.jpg
so tweak that, Don.
no - but seriously, I came here to write something important, and here it is: I don't know if Don is managing _right now_, but judging by this article, i'm going to assume he is (even though this is probably a list of things not to say when doing a pitch to him). Now Don has been managing peeps like most us at HN for 30 years. That's crazy.
can you imagine doing something for 30 years? I can barely imagine doing the same something for 5, but he's done this for 30. That means he has experience.
Now, I don't know Don, but today, on this cool sunday, Don has summed up 30 years of experience to me into 8 rude complaints. He has pointed out flaws he has seen over and over again without pointing out any solutions or constructive criticisms or proper examples to look up to. And that to me is like a child complaining.
dev - "it's modular, so we ca-"
don - "no."
what? what kind of conversation is _that_? can you not think of 1 modular application ever built? By the comments here, some people clearly have. Off the top of my head, here is one modular project…
> Someone wants a Facebook clone for $500? Simply respond "it's a huge amount of work and I won't be able to do it for that." If they press, explain why.
>Just saying "no, I can't help you" and walking away isn't doing yourself any favors.
You're right. But it's a grey area. There are some real crazies/idiots out there, and picking up a delinquent client is parasitic. If you work a large project, and the client pulls some bullshit to avoid payment, you may need to take them to court. This takes time you could be productive on other projects. A client who signs off on a design, and then complains that it's not what they want, will extend project. Too much of "could you make the yellow more yellow?" "I want people to smell cinnamon and peppermint." results in a poor finished product due to both frustration and a lack of communication.
Just dropping a client has it's own difficulties, and may not be possible depending on the agreement.
"I'll pay you $500 for a large project" is one indicator that could be a difficult client. Of course, it's not a truth, but I feel a good defensive game goes a long way.
It's sampling bias, but http://clientsfromhell.net and http://clientcopia.com/ are entertaining yet frustrating sites to see some of the worst of it. Let's add to the cynicism!
And a decent top ten list. These guys are more common than you'd believe. http://freelancefolder.com/bad-clients-and-how-to-avoid-them/
In an ideal world, Waterfall will lead to a worse product than an iterative one. We don't live in the real world, and I expect these guys deal with clients who regularly fall into the -from-hell[1] category. I would bet that many people posting here aren't running consultancies and don't have experience with such clients (or any clients).
In such a situation, it is in fact entirely rational to develop a lightweight, low cost UI that a non-technical person can commit to, i.e. sign a contract. The developer can then go off and implement it with a very clear legal case if the client then chooses not to pay because "its not what we wanted".
Its not what I do, and I know that many here take a more involved approach to their clients, but its undeniable that it is a successful business model, and in some cases I believe it can produce some result where otherwise there might be none. Equally I'm sure it produces results that are ultimately not used, but where the company still gets paid.
[1] http://clientsfromhell.net/
Argument from lack of imagination. But I don't think the the large, well-represented adversarial client is as common as the clients who are simply stupid. Either way it's not something I have a lot of personal experience with, but Clients from Hell is pretty full up with stupid, greedy clients and equally stupid designers with bad contracts. As an example:
http://clientsfromhell.net/post/107004953453/me-your-invoice-is-now-more-than-two-months
The above is clearly a situation where contract verbiage for transfer of rights would make any subsequent conversation on the topic very short. However, as to your general point, what do you suggest? Is that risk something that can be mitigated, or priced into your rates?
Giving the maximum benefit of the doubt, this easily could have been a placeholder image that was missed when it was pushed into production.
The real problem is the gulf between the law and perception on what is content "theft". There are many people who wouldn't see a problem using the XCode logo for other purposes (read http://clientsfromhell.net/ for several examples of people not understanding copyright infringement).
The article seems a little overblown in its tone. We should allow NBC the same latitude we would want if one of our employee's had made the same mistake. We should also ask NBC to support legislation that would allow for education and forgiveness.
yes, and there is nothing worse than presenting a really great solution to a client and they get hung up on the color of an icon.
there are whole blogs devoted to the stupidity of designer's clients - and now this can be witnessed on a global scale.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell
http://clientsfromhell.net/
compare to the typical criticism right now. the safari icon looks terrible - instant fail! man, i hope the iOS team gets shielded from this outbreak of retardation, lest they slit their wrists.