Can't see the wood for the trees?

Sometimes I feel as though customers allow their attention to detail to run away with them too much and they can't see the wood for the trees. There's a coupld of customers' sites that are built and ready to go live, but in each case something is stopping them that's just too much attention to detail.

In the first case, the site is wonderful, works well and has had the stock loaded to it. It's published and ready to sell, apart from one missing essential - a home page. The home page isn't there - so anyone typing in the URL assumes there's not a site there. It's a shame when so much effort has gone into the site and the URL is being advertised.

Why isn't the home page 'ready'. Well, she gave us a logo to use and basically just want's this large graphic banged slap in the middle of the screen. Without checking, it's 500 pixels wide by probably 400 high. So it fills up most of the screen. But she want's it a little bit wider. Not much, just a little. So she's gone back to the original graphic artist. When she extended it and I published it, the customer didn't like the feel. So it's back to the drawing board. All for the sake of a few pixels. The graphic looks fine and I'd be happy to be a customer of the site.

In the second instance it's just nit-picking over fine details on the screen - those links in the top right should be the same size as those on the left was one of them. They were 8px and 9px Arial font respectively. Then some pictures needed 'balancing' more accurately - they were moved apart by 2 to 3 pixels. And the list of changes goes on.

Why? OK, if they make the site look horrible then yes, get them sorted. But most customers aren't going to notice these problems, and he has the ability to change the pictures anyway - the sizing will affect the spacing.

What is wrong with this? Well, apart from wasting time in development, the sites are on hold, not earning the customers' the income they should be. Another recent customer picked over his site and finally agreed it was finished and then started receiving huge amounts of orders each week. That's that many lost each of the previous weeks.

Does it matter if these details aren't right? I think not. I like to review the style of the site anyway once it's live and make changes if required then. As long as the site looks good and gives the site's customer the feeling that the shop is professional and not going to run off with their money, what does it matter if links are 8px or 9px? If they can be read, they can be read. If the site looks good enough to convince people to buy the products, they will buy them.