What do you see as being your role?

Do you offer your client a solution or do you follow their instructions?

Do you let them dictate the layout and content even if it goes against your own concept of style?

Where do you draw the line(s)?

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Clients fall into three categories:

• Those who know exactly what they want, down to the nearest pixel.
• Those who have a vague idea of what they want but are open to guidance.
• Those who haven't a clue and aren't even sure what the Internet is.

For the first, my role is to convert their design to a webpage.
For the second, it is a two way process - I give them samples and we then modify the design to their request.
The third are the hardest. They never seem to know what they like, but are sure of what they don't like. They remind me of whats-his-name in Little Britain - "I want that.........[I design the site].......I don't like that...."
Occasionally I have to tell 'em what they can't have. The usual things that confuse them are browser screen size [why doesn't my logo fill the screen?!] and wee things like the fact that you can't have text at an angle, like it is on their company brochure.

So generally, I give them loads of advice and give them what they want within the limits I set down. It works well. If they want a luminous site with shed loads of animated gifs, I'll try to talk 'em out of it, but if they won't shift, I'll give 'em the the site of their dreams [even if it is everyone elses nightmare].

I couldn't put it better myself. I have one of those (third cat) on my back, and I gave up on him. told him to go elsewhere cause I have no time for that type of arguments. End up doing just the hosting for him. He's still after me, but I keep the distance until he knows what i am talking about.

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i cant be bothered to write anything.. but here is an email i sent to someone on this very subject .. for what its worth

My thoughts and various rambling is this;
There are many kinds of clients out there and they are all at diferent places when it comes to intenet.
There are plenty of businesses out there that cant get a printed broshure together, let alone an effective website. There are also web designers who cater for this market, helping them to get some crappy litle broshure site together - and fair play is what I say.

For a lot of those people they have taken a first step regards marketing & web. Maybe they will progress further, maybe not. With regards the designers - well, we all have to earn a living - and some of these people genuinly put in the effort, so the client gets his value for money. I wouldn't realy knock these people - horses for courses is what I say.

As you have said yourself - you can only realy commit yourself to so many clients. At the end of the day you get more satisfaction from working with professionals ... So you become more selective etc. when taking on clients. We all have the skeletons in the closet... Those early jobs where you're still commited. But providing these clients treat me with resepect, I remain 100% behind them even though I wouldn't go near them now if it was a new enquiry.

I see the role of the web developer to be just that one step ahead of the client. You need to be able to empathise and relate to where they are at, while at the same time initiating and encouraging their development & progress. If you have any client that is responsive to this approach the work becomes a pleasure and a nice relationship can be built, regardless of how far down the road they are.

If there is any issue that needs attention, it is the lack of knowledge and research clients do before even talking to a web developer. Your issues regarding copy & SEO would go way over their heads most of the time. I've seen plenty of people (the majority) ending up with sites that will do sweet FA for them, as you are pointing out yourself. And in the vast majority of cases they got exactly what they were asking for - literaly, the web designer gave them what they wanted & for the budget they wanted. It's a shame. But I don't blame the designers alone , they are just catering to mingy undereducated demand. If a client isnt savy enough to research before buying..... We'll it's no different if you buy a car or PC.

I rang XX, by the way, & will be following up. I'll let you know what comes of it. I'll sound him out before deciding weather to do anything. To be honest there are loads of enquires for people wanting to setup overseas property sites. Most of them are monkeys, but Mark seemed sound on the phone -- we'll see.

Okay, better get on with some work ... ---