Come Up With A Solution And Bob’s Your Uncle

I work in designing electronic forms. The client is unhappy with the current design of the form.

Client: “There’s not enough room in the name boxes! What if someone has a very long name?”

Me: “Okay, we can make the box bigger.”

Client: “No, you can’t make the box bigger. It needs to be symmetrical with the other boxes.”

Me: “Then we can make the font smaller.”

Client: “No, it would look weird if it’s different from the other boxes.”

Me: “We can use a narrower font from the same family. We can keep the font the same in all the boxes.”

Client: “No. We chose that font because it’s the CEO’s favorite.”

Me: “How about we arrange it so that if the input is very long, it gets split over two lines and squeezed into the box that way.”

Client: “No, that would look weird.”

Me: “Sir, you seem to think I’m holding out on some magical solution to your impossible request. Please, enlighten me: how do I ensure the name box can support longer names if I cannot change the size, font size, or font?”

Client: “It’s your job to have solutions!”

Me: “Well, the only things left I can think of are to have the form be in three dimensions and have the text spiral outwards from the form towards the reader. Or… force the person to change their name to Bob and call it a day.”

Pause.

Client: “…We might be open to that font narrow-y thingy you mentioned.”