I occasionally build websites. I had one client who needed her whole website redone. The old site was very simple and not very visually appealing. I created a site that looked great and had all her content displayed attractively.

One thing that should be understood is this client has limited vision and uses a screen reader.

Client: my friends say it looks good but when I go on it I see a combo box. I don’t want that combo box.

Me: What do you mean by combo box?

Client: The combo box. It’s right there! I don’t like it.

I did some research and found that this was her screen reader’s name for a drop-down menu. It came up whenever that particular theme had to be shrunk down to a 640 by 480 screen size.

Client: Get rid of it.

Me: Honestly, I’m not sure how to remove that, but it shouldn’t be a problem because no one is going to see this drop-down menu unless they use the screen resolution you do, which is VERY uncommon these days.  

Client: But I see it, and I hate it. Get rid of it.

Since she wouldn’t be moved, I found a theme that didn’t look nearly as nice, but didn’t create a drop-down menu for the main topics when it resized which got rid of the “combo box.”

She was about to approve the site but had another complaint.

Client: I don’t want the site to say index. Why does it say index? It’s a website. I want it to say website.

Me: (thinking it was her screen reader again) Where do you see that?

Client: At the top.

After some back and forth, I figured out she meant the URL.

Me: That’s the way the internet is structured. The main page on a site will often have a URL ending in “index.” That’s perfectly normal.

Client: I don’t want it to say index. It needs to say website.

So now her site address says “http://clientsitenamehere/website.”

I died a little when I did that.