Backend Requirements: “When x,y goes in, I want x+y to come out!” - Okay

Frontend Requirements: “Well it needs to be more user-friendly, and have this rockstar wow effect” - Yea wtf are you even talking about? You want me to add random glitter explosions, because I found a script for that, that’s pretty ‘wow effect’ right?

Actually the front end stuff is more like “we need to make the ‘sign in’ button bigger. No one can click it because it’s tiny, and it’s in German.”

I spent years as a mobile developer and the thing that always drove me the most nuts was being handed a software design with lots of tiny buttons that were nearly impossible to tap with a finger. I generally implemented the UI by increasing the size of the tappable regions (without increasing the apparent size of the buttons) making it actually usable, but one time the designer discovered that I was doing this and went apeshit and convinced the project manager to undo all this and make the tappable regions the same size as the buttons. The grounds for ordering me to undo this was that implementing the larger tappable regions would take too much extra time - despite the fact that this had already been done and it took additional time to undo it.

So wait you actually had to undo it all? What kind of designer would make mobile buttons small?

I usually just do what they requested and when they come to complain I just tell them “well, you’re the one who requested this” and pull up receipts. My DM to myself on Slack is filled with screenshots and links to confirmations for bullshit requests that the product team made.