OK. I used to have an account ages ago, though I seem to have lost it. Oh well.
As a little bit of background,
I'm a geek, I suppose. Though not really. I've been using computers since I had a pong station, and whee, was that vic 20 ever something when I first got it....
I, sadly, am too poor to have managed a Degree, being cursed with poverty, singleness and an american birth certificate. (as I have seen mentioned in this topic) I have spent my whole life working to stay alive. To answer a comment I saw earlier in this post, people DO starve out here in the real world, you know. Some of you apparently seem to not understand this.
All I have going for me is the fact that people around me seem to think I am very intelligent, and I do find that there doesn't seem to be any given thing I cannot learn. So, If you're one of those pedigree-checker types, feel free to skip the rest of the message.
I've worked up and down the scale of technologies, from metalworking to coding and electronics. This gives me an interesting take on things, I think.
When I do freelance Web Design (I do, and am always glad to have the jobs, because the amount of money a guy makes doing this work is ridiculous, considering that a retarded monkey can write web pages, in fact)
I start it off with a very simple measure, which might not have occured to all you 'tremendously educated folks':
First, I make them lay it out for me visually.
No matter how mych of a tyro the Client may be they pretty much always have some familiarity with SOME sort of program.
Usually Word, Powerpoint, or Excel. I tell them to lay it out to me , visually, in a doc, xls or powerpoint.
For those rare people who have not even this level of expertise (They ARE out there, though what the heck they want with a website has always evaded me) I have them literally draw me a picture. No, I don't even care if they use crayons.
This pretty well short-circuts any of the common layout conflicts I have seen occur.
Secondly, I subject them to a series of questions.
They have to be phrased in that I call "Client-Speak", a turn of phrase I have developed over the many years I have dealt with this.
Basically it's all HOW you say it.
For instance, You, as a web developer, are often wont to use statements like "And would you like a form, with associated form-handler? and would you like that information emailed, stored in local DB or both?" Pretty straightforward and specific, right?
NO. That whole statement is total gibberish to most of your clients. They might nod and go, "Oh, yes, we need that, definitely!"
What's really going on in their heads is usually a little more like this . o O ( What the hell is THAT? I guess we need it or something, or he wouldnt mention it... I better agree just to not look stupid...)
I find that I get far far better results speaking in more collloquial terms, like, for instance,
"So, are you ever going to need to EVER hear from any of the people who view this page? and if so, Do you want just an email, or do you want what they said saved somewhere else too?"
Or, "Oh, well, if you want to actually SELL things, directly off the page, that makes it a lot more complicated. You DO know that it'll cost a LOT, and take extra time, right?"
as opposed to "Well, we'll need a shopping cart applet, a database backend, and an account at paypal or something similar... This all raises cost and deadline requirements hugely"
Works like a charm.
At least, when I do jobs, I never have these problems anymore, because I follow these two simple rules.
I dunno. Like the other guys says. I think rain is wet, what the heck do I know.
Slashdot Mirror
OK. I used to have an account ages ago, though I seem to have lost it. Oh well.
As a little bit of background,
I'm a geek, I suppose. Though not really. I've been using computers since I had a pong station, and whee, was that vic 20 ever something when I first got it....
I, sadly, am too poor to have managed a Degree, being cursed with poverty, singleness and an american birth certificate. (as I have seen mentioned in this topic) I have spent my whole life working to stay alive. To answer a comment I saw earlier in this post, people DO starve out here in the real world, you know. Some of you apparently seem to not understand this.
All I have going for me is the fact that people around me seem to think I am very intelligent, and I do find that there doesn't seem to be any given thing I cannot learn. So, If you're one of those pedigree-checker types, feel free to skip the rest of the message.
I've worked up and down the scale of technologies, from metalworking to coding and electronics. This gives me an interesting take on things, I think.
When I do freelance Web Design (I do, and am always glad to have the jobs, because the amount of money a guy makes doing this work is ridiculous, considering that a retarded monkey can write web pages, in fact)
I start it off with a very simple measure, which might not have occured to all you 'tremendously educated folks':
First, I make them lay it out for me visually.
No matter how mych of a tyro the Client may be they pretty much always have some familiarity with SOME sort of program. Usually Word, Powerpoint, or Excel. I tell them to lay it out to me , visually, in a doc, xls or powerpoint.
For those rare people who have not even this level of expertise (They ARE out there, though what the heck they want with a website has always evaded me) I have them literally draw me a picture. No, I don't even care if they use crayons.
This pretty well short-circuts any of the common layout conflicts I have seen occur.
Secondly, I subject them to a series of questions.
They have to be phrased in that I call "Client-Speak", a turn of phrase I have developed over the many years I have dealt with this.
Basically it's all HOW you say it.
For instance, You, as a web developer, are often wont to use statements like "And would you like a form, with associated form-handler? and would you like that information emailed, stored in local DB or both?" Pretty straightforward and specific, right?
NO. That whole statement is total gibberish to most of your clients. They might nod and go, "Oh, yes, we need that, definitely!"
What's really going on in their heads is usually a little more like this . o O ( What the hell is THAT? I guess we need it or something, or he wouldnt mention it... I better agree just to not look stupid...)
I find that I get far far better results speaking in more collloquial terms, like, for instance,
"So, are you ever going to need to EVER hear from any of the people who view this page? and if so, Do you want just an email, or do you want what they said saved somewhere else too?"
Or, "Oh, well, if you want to actually SELL things, directly off the page, that makes it a lot more complicated. You DO know that it'll cost a LOT, and take extra time, right?"
as opposed to "Well, we'll need a shopping cart applet, a database backend, and an account at paypal or something similar... This all raises cost and deadline requirements hugely"
Works like a charm.
At least, when I do jobs, I never have these problems anymore, because I follow these two simple rules.
I dunno. Like the other guys says. I think rain is wet, what the heck do I know.