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24 ways to impress your friends

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michael albee

I only wish it were this simple … I have so many clients that will not approve a layout unless it looks exactly the same in each browser.

True story …

“Elma comes to me for a brand new site because hers is a template from 2000 … she browses the web often but still doesn’t even realize that her computer at home is running a different browser than her computer at work.”

I present her with a design that she LOVES … (and kept the documentation to show it to her later).

I then go ahead and code the site with html and css validation in all major browsers and then “tweak” the css so that it is compatible with earlier browsers.

We get the site live. She starts showing it around to all of her friends and referencing parts of the site that she “loves.”

Then she goes home and pulls up the site to show her husband … (This computer is running IE6 and some of the design element had to be tweaked because IE6 SUCKS!).

Immediately I get an urgent, frantic phone call saying that the site is “MESSED UP.” I explain to her that the web is not like printed material and that it can be rendered differently across different browsers/platforms and that this is something that we had discussed previously and she had approved.

Completely frustrated that her design would not look exactly the same in EVERY browser she had me take the site down completely and put her site from 2000 back up for her. (Thank goodness I made a back up!)”

Unfortunately, in my experience if browsers aren’t rendering a site in at least an EXTREMELY similar way I have been unable to get a client approval.

If I was to show the example here to my clients there is no way they would be satisfied with the major differences in the layout.

So how would you tackle that kinda of situation? I’ve tried “teaching” clients about the differences, tried showing them slight modifications, and even in extreme cases had to refer clients to other people because they were so difficult to please that I was losing money on their projects.

Advice?