I didn’t want to write about this at first because it was already a sad situation to begin with but then yesterday I found out about something: and then the picture became extremely clear all of a sudden and made the whole situation truly pathetic. So I’ve changed my mind because I’m stumped for the type of behaviour coming from someone my age probably older. You would expect someone that age to have left the playground by now and leave the immature 10 year old attitude behind as well, but I guess I was wrong…

A friend of a friend had mentioned a certain website from an organisation he/she worked for and how hard it was to convince this organisation to have it redesigned and/or rebuild. I had a look at it a few weeks later and to be blunt, it totally sucks. It has the worst navigation I’ve ever seen, it’s confusing, it’s chaotic, it’s a mess and the design is something I don’t even wish to discuss. I wanted to help out this person so he/she had something to show and convince the organisation that things could be improved.

I won’t go into design rules/details but navigation is the most important aspect of a website and very much underestimated, I’ve worked for web design agencies since the start of the internet in 1995 and I’ve seen it all evolve over time but that one rule is still very very valid. Anyway… I had set up a system and structure where the organisation was able to update the website themselves, including a new design based on a clear and easy to use navigation. This presentation website/sketch already contained about 90 pages.

I contacted the friend of the friend who was very enthusiastic and immediately noticed the difference in structure/navigation. It was then passed on within the organisation. A certain person had a look as well but she also had the nerve to snoop around my directories trying to get to the core which she couldn’t reach because I’m not that stupid, it’s all protected. Through my stats I could see she’d spent a total of 44 minutes visiting 16 ‘sketch pages’ and 16 hits on my business website, portfolio, testimonials and fees page.

Then I received the email… the first few lines were normal but the second paragraph had a tone in it that slowly changed from bad to worse and ended in a request demand to remove a small image from my business website. I keep a ‘recent projects’ column that shows what I’m currently working on, either finished website or presentation. Only a finished website has a link and my client’s name all else says ‘in progress’ and has no other info. The image showed 5 mm of the bottom of the logo which was enough to offend her.

I had no intention of removing anything at all especially not when I’m approached like that, I’d done nothing wrong, I wasn’t lying, it mentioned ‘presentation’ (what’s so hard to understand about that word?) and had no links nor names attached to it. But I was willing to adjust the image and I sent her a polite email back explaining how she got it all wrong. Never heard from her again… Of course I’d password protected my design after this incident and my gut feeling was confirmed later that day when she tried to snoop around again.

Yesterday I googled her name out of curiosity and to my surprise found out that she’d started her own unsuccessful graphic/web design business in 2001. Her business website looks as bad as the one I mentioned above. She had only three graphic design examples displayed at the size of a stamp and three website designs. Two of those linked to a dead end page: a for sale domain and the third linked to her sister’s business. It all looked like frontpage and PC crap and not proper design. And of course that’s when the/my penny dropped…

I’m still stumped that someone could overreact the way she did, so huffy… but now I realise it must have been jealousy and envy and it wouldn’t surprise me if that current chaos of a so-called website has been designed by her. It would totally explain this overreaction and pathetic behaviour. I haven’t heard back but that doesn’t surprise me at all, I’m a threat and she has a severe case of being driven by territorial imperatives. Her loss…

Can you imagine having to work with this person? I’m glad I gave it a miss the moment I received her email.

I am better than that.