Many web development projects – large and small alike – can produce difficulties for both sides of the designer/client relationship. There are opportunities for designers and clients to become frustrated. Most businesses have little experience of commissioning web projects, and for designers it is difficult to communicate their needs to clients.
There are a number of concepts that will help both sides of the relationship, and most importantly from the client side of the equation, keep costs down.
Spend Smart
Remember what services you are buying. Paying a web designer to carry out data entry or word-processing tasks for your web project is not a cost effective use of your web budget.
Unless you are engaging your designer to carry out copywriting or copyediting services for you, try to ensure that the source materials are in a form as close to the final product as possible.
Plan Properly
Get as much work done up front as possible. Changes are easier in the planning stages than in the execution. If you are uncomfortable with the colours or layout at the concept sketch stage, it is safer not to assume that the niggles will ‘grow on you’ as time goes by.
Trust Your Designer
Trust your web designer. Whilst it is true that the customer is always right, but the designer should be more experienced in the field of Internet design and development, and should be able to offer you plenty of constructive advice at all stages. If you cannot trust your web designer, you may need to find another web designer that you can.
Know What You Want
Try to establish your own requirements in advance. The more information you can present to your web designer on who your company is, what your company does, your target audience, and so on, the better.
Building a basic profile of your requirements before engaging a designer is free. Having a designer build a profile of your requirements from scratch will be chargeable, even if the charge is not transparent. Concentrate on your goals and objectives.
Think Results Not Methods
Think more about what you want to achieve than how you want to do it. A goal-oriented approach makes the communication between client and designer easier – especially if the terminology is unclear.
Concentrating on your goals and objectives will mean that you are detailing your requirements based on your own area of expertise: your business.
Again, place trust in your designer’s experience – present your designer with the goals you are trying to achieve, or the functionality you are looking for, and let them present you with the best solutions.
Keep it Clear
Make sure that the documentation at all stages of the project is clear and understood by both parties.
If there is any relevant terminology specific to your market or industry, make sure the designer knows what it means – and vice versa: your designer should explain any specialised concepts used.
If your designer is presenting you with something that is unclear or unintelligible, let them know as soon as possible – if you understand what they are talking about, you will be able to understand what they are delivering.
Remember Who’s Who
In every web development project the client has a role and the designer has a role. Remember which is which.
If you are paying your designer to fulfil your requirements, let them do so. If you are going to do the work yourself, why pay a designer?
The design process should be a collaboration – it makes it far more likely that the end product will be something that you are happy to be paying for. Provided you have chosen a good designer, remember that you know your business, and they know design. It is up to you to tell your designer about your business, and up to your designer to tell you about design.
The little things can keep any supplier-customer relationship running smoothly – the seven points in this article are just some of the ways in which the designer-client relationship can be made that little bit more harmonious.
Jon Wilson, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
jon.wilson@threespot.co.uk
http://www.notbob.co.uk
Jon Wilson is an independent writer, consultant and developer, bringing high quality internet services within reach of small businesses in a time effective, cost effective manner.
