Attention to detail can be a good thing, and sometimes it can be bad. It means I have high expectations of everyone and expect people to notice the same detail that I would. Sometimes it can mean that I have to make an effort not to stress the details that don’t matter, and I’m definitely getting better at that. Sometimes I can’t understand people’s lack of detail though. Take this example…
I recently asked our website developers to make a small change to our website to make it possible for our non-technical content editors to make changes on which retailers serviced which states (previously something only our developers could edit). So they did the job and came back to me with this interface:
It’s pretty straight forward – you simply tick the box next to each state that that retailer services and bam – an easily editable interface. But there is a problem. I’m bothered by the lack of order of these tick boxes. If this was a front end interface I would say this isn’t user friendly as it has no defined order. If we were listing American states, this would be a more major problem! It’s not ordered by alphabetical order, not geographical, not even population size. Just completely random. So at the risk of being a difficult client, I have asked them to change it. Every other list on the website is alphabetical and whilst I know that this is just a small admin-only interface I’d rather get it changed now than set a precedent for random things on our website. Yes, I’m a difficult customer!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 17th, 2011 at 10:36 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Online Marketing Stuff is a blog created by Louisa Dahl to share her experiences as a web start-up. Louisa has been working in the online arena for 12 years and previously worked as an online strategy consultant.
Interactive Minds is a Brisbane networking group created to bring together Queensland entrepreneurs who have an interest in the Internet, digital marketing and interactive media.
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Yes, I’m an “attention to detail” client
Attention to detail can be a good thing, and sometimes it can be bad. It means I have high expectations of everyone and expect people to notice the same detail that I would. Sometimes it can mean that I have to make an effort not to stress the details that don’t matter, and I’m definitely getting better at that. Sometimes I can’t understand people’s lack of detail though. Take this example…
I recently asked our website developers to make a small change to our website to make it possible for our non-technical content editors to make changes on which retailers serviced which states (previously something only our developers could edit). So they did the job and came back to me with this interface:
It’s pretty straight forward – you simply tick the box next to each state that that retailer services and bam – an easily editable interface. But there is a problem. I’m bothered by the lack of order of these tick boxes. If this was a front end interface I would say this isn’t user friendly as it has no defined order. If we were listing American states, this would be a more major problem! It’s not ordered by alphabetical order, not geographical, not even population size. Just completely random. So at the risk of being a difficult client, I have asked them to change it. Every other list on the website is alphabetical and whilst I know that this is just a small admin-only interface I’d rather get it changed now than set a precedent for random things on our website. Yes, I’m a difficult customer!
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 17th, 2011 at 10:36 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.