My world is shook


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

     A friend of mine at the dance studio is branching out her business, and put a call out for web designers recommendations. I do this for a living, but I don't freelance, so I said while I couldn't take the job, I'd gladly vet anyone she's thinking of and/or provide "web designer to English" translation services.  I said that because I want her business to succeed.  Even if I had never read this forum, I'd still have encountered my fair share of WTF-worth design firms.

    So she picks one, and lets me know they do design meetings, have an in-house photographer for photo shoots, and even help with web promotion and social media.  Perhaps I'm a bit on edge with worry, so my hackles are already up. All I hear is "corporate time waster", "flash-based website" and "rip-off scummy SEO".

    She gives me the name of the design firm so I can check them out.  Google, click, check them out and...

    huh, odd. Their website actually works with NoScript on. Sure, the nav bar is a bit off centre-- but the content shows up. And the links work.

    Must be a coincidence. View source? Huh, they're using WordPress instead of their own quasi-CRM designed by an in-house "rockstar". So can't complain about the HTML or comments or javascript. It's all solid.

    Fine, let's do another sniff test.  CTRL-F, type in "SEO" and-- no results found. The front page is actually fairly buzzword free. There's a bit of market speak, but it's all fairly accurate.

    Okay, their "about" page must be hilarious then. It's gotta be filled with stupid photos, bad grammar and insane gen-y ego inflation boasting. It's-- a tasteful photo of the two founders, with the details of their actually relevant industry experience, and their design philosophy.

    Well, ferk. This is a perfectly normal and acceptable company that I'm comfortable handling my friend's online business. I don't know what to say or what to think. How did I become TRWTF, full of rage and spite and assumptions of utter bitter pessimism? My world doesn't make sense anymore. Not only can the centre not hold, it is actively flinging like a monkey with poo.  I'm even afraid to post a link to the design firm here, lest that rare innocent unicorn be eviscerated with shards of its own shattered spine, marinated in it's own internal bile and excrement, and finally force-fed it's own anus.

    Wow.



  • 90% of everything is crap. You get so used to everything being crap that you expect it, and then you're shocked and stumped when you finally stumble into the 10% of non-crap. Makes sense to me.



  • What do they charge?


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @malaka said:

    What do they charge?

     

    Not sure. They're "expensive" is all I got. But it's hard to judge what people think is "expensive" when it comes to web development. Most people's meterstick starts and ends with "HTMLcodes by the nephew"

     



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    How did I become TRWTF, full of rage and spite and assumptions of utter bitter pessimism? My world doesn't make sense anymore.
     

     WTF-warriors fight complain to create a world they are ill-fitted to live in themselves.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @malaka said:

    What do they charge?

     

    Not sure. They're "expensive" is all I got. But it's hard to judge what people think is "expensive" when it comes to web development. Most people's meterstick starts and ends with "HTMLcodes by the nephew"


    Which is why you should immediately hang up the phone whenever sports clubs, small restaurant owners or distant relatives ask you to "design" their website.



  • It all looks nice and innocent until you hit the Contact Us form that has hours of operations.



  • @mott555 said:

    90% of everything is crap. You get so used to everything being crap that you expect it, and then you're shocked and stumped when you finally stumble into the 10% of non-crap. Makes sense to me.

    I was expecting the first comment to be crap... what the hell is going on in the world?



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Their website actually works with NoScript on. Sure, the nav bar is a bit off centre-- but the content shows up.

    But does the menu fly all around the room and make ninja-movies sounds when you select an item? Does the ceiling explode when you pick an item in the futuristic compass button?

    Ninja-movies sound trumps NoScript.



  • @WernerCD said:

    @mott555 said:
    90% of everything is crap. You get so used to everything being crap that you expect it, and then you're shocked and stumped when you finally stumble into the 10% of non-crap. Makes sense to me.

    I was expecting the first comment to be crap... what the hell is going on in the world?

    Funny coincidence, I was just running some unit tests at work. And I'm used to some nicely formatted output saying e.g. "2 of 100 tests failed (98% pass)." I wasn't getting any such output. After bugging my coworkers (I'm new here) I was informed there is no output if all the tests pass. I'd never seen 100% pass rate before so it really took me by surprise.



  • @Ronald said:

    [ . . . ] the futuristic compass button?

    Wow.  Despite being a two-dimensional object with a single degree of rotational freedom, they managed to make it subject to gimbal lock.  That's quite "special" of them.




  • @Ronald said:

    But does the menu fly all around the room and make ninja-movies sounds when you select an item? Does the ceiling explode when you pick an item in the futuristic compass button?

    Ninja-movies sound trumps NoScript.

    I quite like how under the 'About Us' section, the first item is about how Health and Safety is the "top priority within their company" and the second item is a press release is about a recent industrial accident with fatalities.



  • @Quinnum said:

    @Ronald said:

    But does the menu fly all around the room and make ninja-movies sounds when you select an item? Does the ceiling explode when you pick an item in the futuristic compass button?

    Ninja-movies sound trumps NoScript.

    I quite like how under the 'About Us' section, the first item is about how Health and Safety is the "top priority within their company" and the second item is a press release is about a recent industrial accident with fatalities.

    When I go in the press release pop-up sheet, the mousewheel is behaving strangely. It's kinda half-scrolling. Maybe I need to "flash" the firmware of my mouse.



  • @Ronald said:

    But does the menu fly all around the room and make ninja-movies sounds when you select an item?
     

    "Our website has been built in Flash to create an optimum user experience."

    <font size="6">x 1000</font>



  • @El_Heffe said:

    @Ronald said:

    But does the menu fly all around the room and make ninja-movies sounds when you select an item?
     

    "Our website has been built in Flash to create an optimum user experience."

    <font size="6">x 1000</font>


    I like how the website loads and then the flash loads over the website and shows me its loading progress. After the site has loaded.



  • @Ben L. said:

    I like how the website loads and then the flash loads over the website
    I actually like that because it means that the website works fine without Flash.



  • @Ronald said:

    But does the menu fly all around the room and make ninja-movies sounds when you select an item? Does the ceiling explode when you pick an item in the futuristic compass button?

    Ninja-movies sound trumps NoScript.

    I actually got motion sickness when it transferred me to the recruitment dome. Dry retching is not a good look when you're meeting HR.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    @Ben L. said:

    I like how the website loads and then the flash loads over the website
    I actually like that because it means that the website works fine without Flash.


    Now if they would just remove the flash part, I wouldn't have this horrible headache!



  • Wow, there really is a good website underneath that flash monster. This just makes it sadder, going through all that work to build something that just serves to make your website unusable, when all you had to do was do nothing.

    I guess they really needed to differentiate themselves from their competitors, even if it meant throwing away all their work to put something pretty but useless instead. Kinda like Nokia.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    How did I become TRWTF, full of rage and spite and assumptions of utter bitter pessimism?

    @Lorne Kates said:
    Joined on Tue, Jan 19 2010
    [...]
    Posts 2,033


  • Considered Harmful

    @ArrivingRaptor said:

    Filed under: I'm insinuating anyone who comes to this site will become TRWTF eventually

    You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become TRWTF.


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