Client Complaints

[mccormicky]

Whew it's been a while since I visited here but I have a problem with a site that seems plagued with bad luck.
It's a very simple layout and the only graphics being used are in the header.
Basically it's holy grail all the way: header content sidebar footer.
It's so simple that I do not understand why every time my client goes out of town and shows someone her site -- there are always problems!

I use Browser Shots to load the site in about a kajillion varying environs so the last time it happened I fixed the probs that IE 6 was causing.
Of course it would help if my client actually told me what the problems were but she is always very vague.
This time she said the site didn't fill up the the screen resolution her friend has. I checked Google Analytic s and saw someone viewed the site in a 1900 by 1200 res
then a few more at 1680 by1050 res.But most use 1024 by 768 which is "standard",for now.
The website is pretty wide about 980px which is pushing it.
The next thing she mentioned were warning messages that made the text hard to read.
So I rechecked the site with Browser Shots based on what Google Analytic s told me and I have access to a PC and a Mac---no sign of these errors--which she said showed in the blog bits(I'm using WordPress for this site and the columns page is her blog where she posts her magazine articles)which is here http://phponline.org/columns

This is a very clean site.It's using WP 2.6 and validates 98% in CSS 100% in Html. 2 Css errors caused by some css3 code used by the cforms plugin.

I really hope someone can help me out with this because it seems like every time my client goes out of town she shows her site to someone and it's a piece of crap on their computer and I really really want to be able to stop that! help!

[stymiee]

I looked at the site in Firefox 3, IE7, IE6, and Safari on Win XP and saw no problems with the site.

Can you find out more about what browser and OS they were using when these errors occurred?

[mccormicky]

Thanks for checking all of those for me, stymiee.
I'm trying to get that info but she only checks her email in the office during working days. I am dying to know what the OS and browser were but I'm pretty sure she didn't ask so she won't be able to tell me.:(
It's just very disappointing because I have gone far and above the usual website checking to make sure this site performs to standards and seem to have failed just the same.
It doesn't matter to a client that the site works in 5,000 visits.It's the one visit where she says "let's look at my new site" and gets embarrassed that counts.
Thanks for your help.

[SarahG]

Can't really comment on the warnings without knowing what they're seeing. You need to tell your client that if she has an error or issue to report she needs to provide you with a screen shot as you cannot try a fix something you can't see.

As for your site, first off change your transitional doctype to strict. It'll give you a cleaner doctype to work from. There's also 7 errors cropping up at present, 17 according to the validator - http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.phponline.org%2Fcolumns%2F

Possibly down to client updates which of course is the downside to trying to keep a clean valid site. Couple of link issues in those errors so they're worth fixing.

In regards to resolution size you either need to discuss this with clients before doing the site, ie. do they want a fixed size, full width or fluid (so it goes down to a minimum and expands to a maximum specified width). Explain the benefits of each. Of course if the design restricts you to fixed width then you need to explain that too. Once it's down on paper, then a client sees the site in some incredibly large res then you can just point this out to them.

Different browsers again need approaching in your initial consultation or terms. Personally I go for the 3 major modern full version browsers are supported (ie. not betas and not old versions). However the site will continue to degrade gracefully in older versions and we try to ensure it works and as much as possible as it does in the main version (ie. with browser side scripting such as ajax). I also cover that future browser versions cannot be supported as we cannot predict their support for the various scripting and markup used. Look at the problems that IE7 brought in for sites hacked for IE6!

Okay, some of this may not help you now but for now you need to explain these things to your client. You need to explain that different people have different settings on their browsers and you cannot predict what everyone may have done to their computer, what settings they've changed etc. Also explain that once you hand the site to your client for them to be able to update themselves you cannot be held responsible for problems caused by their updates and that you will charge for fixing their problems. It's an unfortunate side effect but you cannot be expected to fix their site because they, for example, copied and pasted their content from Word to WordPress and just published it, and that is just nasty!

But I'd get the strict doctype in first and fix the minor validation issues, then just tell her without a screen shot and the info of the browser, OS and screen res, there's not much you can do.

[mccormicky]

SarahG,
There are some clients who you can ask to take screenshots and there are some who could never take a screenshot--and this client is one of those.

You raise a very good point about strict versus transitional --got to be the only way to really debug all of the errors--
which were brought on by the wordpress editor and the extra floating p tag added whenever one uses the return key--and yes you are on target when you state that I cannot and should not be held accountable for mistakes made by my client when updating her site;lists for example-which she loves to use but often forgets to close a li or ul here and there.
I checked the site and there was an unclosed ul on the 1st page after I got her report.

The good news is she told me the computer in question was a "new mac" - that narrows it down a bit.
Browsershots showed how the blog/columns page performed on the latest Safari and there were errors on the page but they were in German.

Since it is a new mac and since most people do not configure their new computers that much or download another browser and just use the default--it's probably the latest ver of Safari.

And those warning or errors were caused by the improper nesting of phantom p tags and the read more link. I call them phantom because they are very hard to get rid of because you can't actually see them in the editor.

Your advice for screen resolutions expectations will have to be put in place for future clients.
I will switch to the strict doc type and carry on from there.

[goldfries]

It could be OS version.

I had some sites that I did with valid XHTML / CSS codes and it worked fine on Windows, checked with FFox3 and IE6.

When I loaded my page on my macbook (with Mac OS X! I don't use bootcamp!) and the page went awry............. there were times I went to my client's place and saw the page looked awkward.

I notice that on the mac, even my validated STRICT site looked slightly different over a few areas. :( eg - both using FF2 but just diff OS.