The client who wanted a carousel

Every project has a moment where the client asks for something you know will hurt them. A carousel. An intro animation. Their logo three times bigger. Music.

Most vendors handle this in one of two bad ways. They refuse on grounds of expertise, which reads as arrogance and poisons the rest of the project. Or they build it and privately resent it, which produces a worse site and a worse relationship.

Neither is necessary, because the request is almost never the actual want.

Somebody asking for a carousel is usually saying "I have five things I need people to know and I do not know how to choose." Somebody asking for a bigger logo is usually saying "I do not feel like this site is mine yet." Somebody asking for an intro animation has seen a competitor's site and felt outclassed.

Those are real problems. The proposed solutions are just the only ones they had vocabulary for.

So the move is to go up one level. Not "carousels do not work," which is a fight about a component. Instead: which of those five things does a customer need first? Usually they can answer, and answering is a relief, because nobody enjoys carrying five unranked priorities.

And when the underlying want is real but the solution is wrong, give them a better one that serves it. They want to feel the brand is present: strengthen the type and the color rather than scale the logo. They want to look modern against a competitor: put the effort into the thing loading in under a second on a phone, which is more impressive than an animation and does not annoy anybody.

Occasionally you go through all that and they still want the carousel. Then build the carousel. It is their business and their money and you are not the last word on it, and a good relationship with a client who made one choice you disagree with beats a perfect site and a bad relationship.

Just make sure the phone number is above it.