I’ve noticed a dangerous trend developing in the past several weeks – the amount of clients claiming that web development is copy and paste. While most of them don’t say all of web development is copy and paste kind of work, most of my conversations (with several people, clients and close friends) have gone something like:
“Can you take this from website A, this from website B, this from website C and put them all on website D? You won’t have to code anything, just copy and paste.”
While we won’t even get into how bad copying code from other sites is, I want to just touch on the copy and paste issue and what it does to us as web professionals.
One thing clients seem to miss, due to the fact they aren’t developers themselves, is that even if we copy and paste code they want, it never works right without modifications.
While it may seem confusing as to why this would be, as it’s the same code on both sites, it’s easy for a web developer to understand:
This is obviously true, otherwise we wouldn’t have a job. However, clients who don’t understand even the basics of HTML can misinterpret what you do and potentially bring in problems.
Just today, my mom called to rant about her Linksys wireless printer router not being compatibile with her new Windows 7 laptop. They told her they were working on coming out with a software upgrade. My mom asked me why they just couldn’t “make it work before the new operating system came out??” When I explained that Windows 7′s “code” isn’t the same as her XP, and that Linksys may not have had the privilege of having access to it before Win 7′s launch, and that it takes serious time to develop software, as well as the fact Windows 7 hasn’t been out very long, she calmed down. Sadly she represents many of our clientale.
Most of us are always super busy as freelancers and don’t have time to write a book defending our expertise and why what we do is what we do. However, it’s important to take the time teach the client, instead of brushing it off or arguing with them, about why “X Changes” aren’t just copying and pasting.
If you don’t make sure they client understands this, they could either fight your hours on your invoice (“Why did you take 10 hours to code this site when I told you it’s exactly like Site B???”) or by not arguing with them, you continue to give them the impression that what we do isn’t valuable or knowledgeable.
Even if you’re just writing one paragraph in an email, explain to them in easy terms the process it takes to code what you’re coding.
There are various ways to reply to clients about why something isn’t as simple as copying and pasting. Here are a few sample ways to show them what it would take:
And so on, sometimes it’s just a quick and simple reply, just make sure it’s truthful (none of these excuses should be used when copy and pasting a paragraph of content for example!)
Have you run into people or clients who thought our jobs were simply copying and pasting? Who didn’t understand what we did and thought we just hit the “code” button to make a website? What did you do?
Photo courtesy of eelke dekker
About the authorI have over 10 years of experience in coding valid and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress that is both clean and SEO-friendly. Also a lover of books, interior design and cheesecake! More »
Copyright © 2010 Amber Weinberg. All rights Reserved. Please don't steal, it's really not cool! But if you'd love to work with me (you do don't you?), please contact me :)
I am so with you on this. Sometimes I can’t believe how dense people can be, and yet I can’t really blame them. Nobody has probably ever explained it to them, so I just do my best to be as patient as I can an calmly explain the difference between what they’re thinking and reality.
Even if they don’t have any kind of programming background, most decent people will be able to equate it with a similar situation in their job, and stop fighting you over it.
Another famous one is a client expecting their site to show up at the top of Google as soon as you code it.
Anyways, excellent post! And the new redesign is sweeet!
I completely agree with your post. Another thing clients don’t understand is what goes into adding content to their websites. I have gotten a lot of content in formatted Microsoft Word documents that most people would think as simple as copy and paste to add it to the website. What they don’t understand is first removing all the formatting from the document then going through and adding the tags and various classes to the text needed to format it properly. If I were asked to use code from another website, I would simply have to respectfully decline.
@Nick, thanks! I’ve still got a few kinks to work out but I’m hoping it lasts for awhile and I stop changing it.
@Chris Copying and pasting from Word is the WORST thing ever. I once worked on a 500+ page site where I had to do content implementation from Word….it eventually lead me to quitting my job so I could control the kind of work I did.
I’m using a template when designing and develop client website but with 70% redesign the whole template. I’m just using basic HTML template because it takes time to develop whole website. Using template saves me a lot of time.
Is this a copy paste?
Using you’re own framework still isn’t copy/paste because you still have to adapt it
What is your comment when blog developer design blog using Thesis Theme? Of course they got Thesis Developer license. Can they claim the overall design is made from them?
I had a potential client who thought “updates” and some “changes to the graphics” was actually redoing the entire site from scratch, design and code, and rebuilding the entire website. Needless to say they ended up keeping what they had and not changing anything.