Trouble with another IT guy!! so called webdesigner

Adrian28uk

The guy I work fors father in law has asked me to redesign his company website as his current IT guy is very good at repairing pc's, network etc but not good with design. I have been told to go through the IT guy for any help but we seem to be getting in to small niggly arguments.

If I am going to be honest with you he knows jack shit about webdesign. I dont expect him too.
He designed the company logo in Word and used Frontpage to design the site. Frontpage I could probably just about agree with, but word for the logo No way.

He knows, I know quite a lot about webdesign so he sends me technical emails full of bullshit babble that can be explained two to three words.

Now he is either trying to test me, intimidate me and make things impossible so that I fail and he looks good in front of the director or he trying to make out he knows what he is doing when he clearly does not have a clue and is worried he is going to be exposed.

I give credit where credit is due and when a logo or site is good I will says its good, but to be honest his attempt was awful. But yet he is telling where stuff should go and what colours I should use.

He says the website must use a font called Lucinda Calligraphy, I told most or all websites use either Arial, Verdana, Times and Georgia. He is not having any of it. Am I wrong? Becuase I am now starting to judge my own ability.

Personally I think Lucinda Calligraphy is an awful font. I have tried to explain that users websites will propbably default to Times new Roman but he is not having any of it.

There are many other things going on but when you get emails from him you know you are dealing with an idiot with no experience or is behind the times.

What should I do?

bpat1434

Lay it out in writing, and CC it to his higher-up.

I had a similar situation once. A guy who makes sites for a living took my design which was all CSS 2.0 based, and layed some bad code OUTSIDE the <html> tags. So it was out of the document flow, it didn't validate, and there was non-backgrounded content floating above other text which made it hard to read. So I feel your pain.

I'd say you point it out to him that you can put "lucida calligraphy" as the font family, but you're putting arial or fantasy as the generic name. This would be so that those users that don't have lucida calligraphy (like myself) will see "fantasy" or whatever your generic family is.

And if he kept communicating in a bloated way, I'd start sending emails like he does, only being specific about web-design. Mentioning things like validation, CSS rules and properties, PHP programming and what-not. Just beat him at his own game. And I'd of course step down, and require all my work be removed from the site. You can't work like that, and you shouldn't have to.

Adrian28uk

Thank you for the advice. I think I am going to have to take it further. The director does not know anything about webdesign so whenever this guy speaks to him he takes it as gospel.

I cant put my name to shit work, it annoys me and when a site starts getting tampered with I cant be bothered anymore. I have been creating websites on and off for six years and I have built up a wealth of knowledge. I have spent hours learning.

Some people should really stay away from designing websites and he is one of them.

I am also in charge of putting together a database for the courses. It does not have to be made difficult. All we need a simple form to ammend course data, a simple for to create a new course and a link from the fcourses to a form so people can provisionally book it, information then gets sent in an email.

But of course he is trying to be clever with me again and use database terminology which gets up my goat. What was turning in to something simple is now being screwed up. He is doing this to test me again and then tell the director I am doing things wrong. As far I am concerned he is one sad F((UJ - you know the word.

Things is if he was that good why has he not designed the database and code in php to do this? I might actually lay the gauntlet down to him and say design it. If he cant out it together then I will tell him to keep his fffiiiing nose out.

zoobie

If you want this job, you're going to have to go to the director and explain it to him as in your first post. You will need to gain his confidence that you just can't work with someone bent on making you look bad when you have 6 years professional experience. When you start calling the shots like this, you'll feel much better about the project and yourself...should you stay.

Rodney_H_

Brett's and Zoobie's advice are very good.

WHen you meet with the director make sure to point out the fact that this IT guy did the following:

1) designed the company logo in word when a professional would design in PhotoShop or FireWorks and compress the image for faster downloads

3) That he insists on using "Lucinda Calligraphy", a font that most people won't have, so a generic default would be used on most systems. That it would be better to use a nice font that most people do have such as Georgia.

4) That you have experience using Dreamweaver, Go-Live (name your poison) which most professional web designers use, and the IT guy is only versed in FrontPage, a program that only corporate hacks use.

5) That if the director wants YOU to do the job, he trusts you to report directly to him

6) That you would like an opportunity to prove yourself to him/the company without "help" from someone, whose intentions you are uncertain about, and whose professional instincts may not be up to the level where you are at. (Try and make this argument relatable to the director/boss and say: "It would be like one of the ______ telling YOU how to run your business." or find a suitable comparison...)

If he is open, he should be amenable to these points and be willing to give you the opportunity to shine.

Note: The trick here is to SELL your skills and ask for an opportunity to take ALL the responsibility on your shoulders. Sell this without putting down your co-worker (Mr. IT) because the boss-man may have a longer history with him, and it is never very acceptable in a workplace to put someone else down. EVEN if you DO have the right skills and the other guy is being a jerk, don't call him names, or put him down in front of the boss. HIGHTLIGHT YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE and ask for the total responsibility and trust from the boss to do the job.

bpat1434

EVEN if you DO have the right skills and the other guy is being a jerk, don't call him names, or put him down in front of the boss. HIGHTLIGHT YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE and ask for the total responsibility and trust from the boss to do the job.

But that doesn't mean you don't point out his mistakes, or where you can do better 😉 Just make sure you don't say:

"Well your logo is done in Word which sucks. I'd redesign your logo in Photoshop. The site was designed by an amateur using Frontpage. I'll professionally redesign your site using Dreamweaver and the latest CSS and XHTML standards making sure the site looks the way it should across all browsers, instead of catering to the Microsoft only crowd."

Cuz even though it may be true, it will get you no-where....

Elizabeth

I'd tend to agree with bpat... sort of.

You've got to walk a very fine line here if you value the incoming business. Of course you don't want your name associated with a crappy work, but that's not what they're paying you for. They're paying you to design the site based on what they want, not what you want. I once had a client that wanted pink with comic sans font. Ugh. But as she did not ask for my opinion, I did not give it. I did what I was told to do and had her for a client for a long time.

It's all about diplomacy. If they ask, then you tell them exactly what needs to be done. But if you go in there all great guns telling them everything wrong they've done and how you are so much better than everybody else (regardless of the truth) then it's going to leave a poor taste in their mouth.

For instance, imagine if you hired a painter to paint your house and you wanted it to be white with black trim, because you're conservative and you dont want anything flashy. But what if your painter decided to take it upon himself to paint it three shades of green because that's what's the trend is. That's what the upper crust does. That looks so much better than plain old black and white, dontcha know, and obviously you lowly person don't know anything about what makes a house look good. That wouldn't be too cool in your eyes, would it? It's not what you wanted; not what you asked for. If you'd have said to the painter "I dont' knwo what I want, what do you think would look good?" that's different. But you gave him specific things you wanted (regardless of what's done elsewhere) and for him to provide you with anything other than that is not good for customer relations.

Now, once you've made them happy in their eyes, you have a much better chance of convincing them to make small changes here and there, until eventually you end up with what your original ideas were - and they're none the wiser, but everybody wins.

Just another 2 cents. 🙂

Elizabeth

You know, I had another thought - these types of execs will also respond to what their competitors are doing. If you're set on convincing them of different design ideas, you might scout out what some competitor's sites look like, and conveniently point out what fonts they're using and how cool the logo looks, and things like that.

It just might occur then to the higher-ups that they should perhaps rethink their website strategy. 🙂

bpat1434

Touché‚ Elizabeth.... Touché‚

(From the Mac Commercial)

madwormer2

Mac do commercials? Maybe they feel the UK market just isn't ready...

pohopo

Great points Elizabeth. I would say in this case though what we have is an owner who wants a normal color and the gardener wants the painter to paint the house neon green with pink polka dots.

bpat1434

Mac do commercials? Maybe they feel the UK market just isn't ready...

Hence why the link is there....

Rodney_H_

If I am not mistaken, the commercials were test-marketed in the US, and there are plans to release them (or similar) in the UK.

PS: Great points, Elizabeth.

Weedpacket

Elizabeth, fount of all good business acumen wrote:
If you're set on convincing them of different design ideas, you might scout out what some competitor's sites look like, and conveniently point out what fonts they're using and how cool the logo looks, and things like that.

Going on the assumption that Adrian28uk has already seen the new look and can get samples, and being the socially-maladjusted misanthrope that I am, I'd not only scout out some of the competition's sites, but make up a sample portfolio from them, slip the new design in as number four, and present the whole bundle to the execs for them to peruse and see if they can spot the odd one out.

vaaaska

BBC redesign pdf...search it on Google and you might find a really nice huge document that could be of importance. I'd post my copy of it someplace but being that I'm on vacation you can pretend that I'm not really here. 😉

pohopo

Weedpacket wrote:
Going on the assumption that Adrian28uk has already seen the new look and can get samples, and being the socially-maladjusted misanthrope that I am, I'd not only scout out some of the competition's sites, but make up a sample portfolio from them, slip the new design in as number four, and present the whole bundle to the execs for them to peruse and see if they can spot the odd one out.

That is a smart idea. Let management choose.

vaaaska

pohopo wrote:
That is a smart idea. Let management choose.

Was Weedie proposing they decide? Ummm...it's a good idea only if management is actually smart. About 'design' supposedly.

madwormer2

Or you could do a whole dramatic thing where you bring in a dog turd in a bag walk up to them and point at it, and go

"IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT THE WEBSITE TO LOOK LIKE?!?! THOUGHT NOT!"

Lol.

Weedpacket

vaaaska wrote:
it's a good idea only if management is actually smart. About 'design' supposedly.

I'm hoping that the contrast might shake a few neurons into life.

But there's something else that made me wince:

The guy I work fors father in law ......

All in all though: who's getting paid to do the design? "He says the website must use a font called Lucinda Calligraphy" and does he have any authority in this decision? If not, then who gives a monkey's? (I really really hope he's not talking about the body text.) Work the design up, present it to the boss, and once it gets signed off you've got the boss telling the IT guy to do what you say.

And document. Everything goes in it: correspondence, development notes, diary jottings. For your own edification down the track (so that you can see how the final result developed); and because if you find yourself needing something to cover your backside, it's already too late to start looking.

(Personally I'm happy if the site uses generic "serif" or "sans-serif" font families. I've got my own preferences, you see, and unless the precise choice of font is relevant, then it shouldn't matter if I'm happy to see "serif" rendered as Algerian and "sans-serif" rendered as Handel Gothic, right?)