http://www.robotregime.com/ en dennis@robotregime.com Copyright 2012 2012-01-06T06:36:16+00:00 http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/respect_your_clients/ http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/respect_your_clients/#When:06:36:16Z To call your client stupid is a self-fulfilling prophesy. After all, they hired you. Your clients don’t know as much about design and technology as you do. Some may be completely befuddled. The disparity between what you know and what they know will always exist. Instead of looking at this gap as a comical gulf of ignorance, view it as a reminder of why your services are valuable to them. Then consider how valuable they are to you. If you’re in the business of selling design or development services, you need clients. The checks they write pay your salary so you can afford cool typefaces, legal copies of Adobe software, and oh yeah…things like food, utilities and shelter. It’s on their behalf that we’re commissioned to architect the digital world. Ethics 2012-01-06T06:36:16+00:00 http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/pay_your_dues/ http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/pay_your_dues/#When:21:43:52Z Advancing your career will take time and hard work, but exploitation should not be a prerequisite for success. If you ask a lot of the people running companies what their employees want, they’ll probably say they want more money, more time off, and a cushy promotion. So that’s how a lot of jobs are structured: you’ve got to start at the bottom, and work your way up. You’re expected to pay your dues. This may be fine if you’re driven by the desire to get a corner office and raise, but what if you have different goals? Perhaps you’re motivated by the potential to continue learning, the pursuit of mastery in your craft, or the yearning to contribute to a greater vision. Opportunities like these abound, but you need to have them in your sights. In other words, if you were on a ship rowing oars all day, wouldn’t you insist on knowing where it’s headed? The same goes for the work you do. You can pound out design and code, and put in 80 hour weeks, but to what end? Paying your dues and paddling away day after day doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get any closer to your goals.  Ethics 2011-12-08T21:43:52+00:00 http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/respect_your_colleagues/ http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/respect_your_colleagues/#When:06:56:33Z Even though we know better than to throw each other under the bus, trash talking among web designers is common. What are the repercussions of this bad behavior, and why are we so compelled to do it? Ethics 2011-09-24T06:56:33+00:00 http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/influence/ http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/influence/#When:16:42:23Z More and more, as we investigate how psychology and behavioral science can be used in design, the topic of morality comes to light. Where does the ethical boundary lie between persuasion and manipulation? Ethics 2011-03-29T16:42:23+00:00 http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/pricing/ http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/pricing/#When:21:38:36Z Do clients distrust web designers and agencies when it comes to pricing? Let’s take a look at a scenario from a designers perspective… An organization sends you an RFP for a website redesign. You notice that it does not indicate the project’s budget, yet it requires that all submissions recommend a solution and provide an estimated cost and timeline. You reach out to the project’s point person in hopes of getting a ballpark budget. After a bit of cat and mouse, it becomes clear that either the client does not know, or will not reveal, their budget. You think, “#@!? me. What planet do these people live on? How can I put together a proper solution if I don’t know what they can afford? If this client does not have the ability to tell me how much money they have in the bank to devote to this project, they probably aren’t the kind of client I want to work with.” Ethics 2010-08-31T21:38:36+00:00 http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/give_the_client_what_they_want/ http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/give_the_client_what_they_want/#When:23:20:05Z When you make compromises to satisfy client demands, are you compromising your integrity? Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: You’ve just received feedback from the client on some designs concepts. They love where you are going with it, and think that it’s almost there. Now, if you could just change the background color to blue, add some gradients (so it looks more 3 dimensional, instead of so flat), and change the font to a sans-serif (as serifs will make the site look outdated, and the site should look modern). Also, if it’s not too much trouble, please add a dropdown with some “quicklinks”. 2010-08-02T23:20:05+00:00 http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/misrepresentation/ http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/misrepresentation/#When:14:23:40Z It’s not OK to make stuff up. Consider this scenario: An organization sends out an RFP for an upcoming web project. After filtering through many responses they narrow the list of applicants down to just a handful. The organization has established some criteria to help them pick the agency they feel will be the best fit. Now they need to perform some research and conduct interviews. You know that you can handle the project, and the client’s name would look great in your portfolio. So during the course of your interview, you stretch the truth. Nothing major…you just get a little creative with the facts. Maybe you said you have experience with something you don’t…or perhaps you told the client that you have more staff than you actually do. No big deal, right? Ethics 2010-07-02T14:23:40+00:00 http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/relationships/ http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/relationships/#When:14:21:34Z Always demonstrate respect for your clients. One of the constant struggles faced by designers is to convey to clients the value of design as problem solving rather than design as a purely aesthetic endeavor. The web designer does more than just decorate with pixels, just as the web developer is more than a simple laborer charged with constructing the site. The true nature of a designer/client relationship should be that of a partnership, where each party maintains an equal level respect for the other. Ethics 2010-07-02T14:21:34+00:00 http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/overview/ http://www.robotregime.com/index.php/articles/view/overview/#When:13:57:56Z Many times unethical behavior is justified as being a necessity, when in actuality the motivation is just short term gain…at the expense of the client and the reputation of our profession. In the day to day life of web professionals, we are sometimes asked to do things that go against our better design judgement or that run afoul of our moral instincts. Independently, what we decide to do in each of these situations is relatively inconsequential. But if you look back and sum up the outcomes of each of these incidents…what does the pattern of behavior reveal? Our reputation is determined by how others perceive us. This is especially true in business, where brand and reputation are inseparable. Regardless of what our role may be, whether it’s that of a developer, an IA, a Content Strategist or the head of an agency, as a part of this industry we must remain cognizant not only of what our actions say about us, but also of how it reflects upon the the profession.  Ethics 2010-07-02T13:57:56+00:00