The Code Dojo

Lately I have been thinking about all the wonderful clients I have had a chance to work with. Each one has characteristics and qualities that make them unique and fun to work with. However, clients never cease to amaze me with their downright silliness and ignorance.

My favorite conversations with clients are the ones where we discuss browsers and the difference between them. I chuckle every time I hear, “I am using IE6.” I frequently applaud the client who uses Firefox because they have taken the time to educate themselves and while I don’t want to get into the reasons we use the browsers we do, just noticing what browser you use is half the battle. You’ve probably read the post by a Google employee about browsers. If not you can read it here. His post got me thinking about comparing clients to cars.

For those of us in the web industry, we frequently laugh at people who just don’t know how to use the web, but how many people are laughing at us because we don’t know how to do something? You might argue “But we (society) spends so much time online, how can someone not know how to use it?” I would argue the following.

How much time do we spend in our cars? Obviously this number depends on your commute, area, etc., but we spend a substantial amount of time in, caring for, washing, and feeding them that we should probably know more about how they work. How many mechanics laugh at us because we can’t change our own oil or replace our brakes? How many AAA repair men does society employ because society doesn’t know how to change a flat tire?

How much time do we spend in our house, but don’t know how to lay carpet or do any sort of plumbing? How many of us know what kind of carpet we have? What is the brandname of your couch? What kind of pipes do you have? These questions are simple for those who are educated and experts in that industry. Compare that to browsers or websites. How many plumbers laugh at you and I because we have weak pipes? How many painters cringe when they see the paint we have? We might say, “But it works just fine!” True, however, IE7 “works just fine” but how many of us cringe when we hear our clients are using it?

How many times has a client come to you saying their site is broken, only to find out it is a user error? It’s natural to sit back and just laugh, but how many of us have made a user error when we “pushed” instead of “pulled” on the door at a restaurant?

When it comes down to it, we are no different from our clients. We may know more about the web, browsers, computers, etc., but they may know more about neurology, public relations, and even cars. We make the same mistakes, just in a different aspect of life, so please, just be a little more patient with your clients.