How to work better with clients for web design projects
In the web design community, even in Singapore, has a few jokes about client requests such as “Make the website cooler” or “Make the color better”.
In fact, such requests happen frequently, and some projects are even dropped as a result of client endlessly requesting for changes in design. This often causes designers to exclude clients from the design process as clients often “don’t know what they want”, and spending time on additional designs that does not yield profit is counterproductive to the designers.
There has to be a better way for design, and it comes from collaborating with the client.
The sound of this may be horrifying. Collaborate with client? This means endless tweaking to the website with no tangible improvement! Actually this is not the case.
Many clients are not experts in web design, and they are afraid of things they do not know. The more they are excluded from the process, they more they want to gain some control, because they want to ensure the money was well spent. After all, if the design fails, they are the ones who are going to suffer the loss. They have to live with the consequences of your design, be it good or bad. In other words, clients want to be part of the design process no matter you exclude them or not. This is especially the case in Singapore and the rest of Asia, as clients are more concerned with money spent on design work such as websites.
Including clients into the design process achieves two things. One, they feel that they have some sense of control over the design and two, you can educate them on the web design, which in turn makes them trust you more and may even engage you for future design services.
As designers, we care about two things, high-quality work and profit. Working with clients right from the start enable us to achieve both. Clients reduce their worry and fear (and number of changes to the website) after they understand more about web design and trust you more.
However collaboration is not an easy process.
The ideal case is to have the client sit next to you as you design, and after a mockup is ready, the client provide feedback and you go on to design the next draft. However, this is impossible. Because the client cannot be around you and the time needed to come up with each mockup equals to resources spent.
In other words, you need to know how to collaborate. It boils down to 2 areas, aesthetics and structure.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics means how does the website look, and most importantly, will the user like it? Is it in line with the image that the company wishes to project? This is to understand what does the client think, what does he want, which direction in design is he going towards and what image does he want the website to portray. This has to do with things such as color, typefaces, style, imagery and target audience.
Structure
Often, you may be facing a difficult decision, whether to focus more on client requests or user needs. Certain messages, pictures and layout is believed to appeal to users of the website better, yet the client may choose to insist on his/her own opinion. This is when structure of the website comes into discussion. You have to either accept or reject the client’s opinion, never sit on the fence!
Conclusion
In conclusion, the design process will be much better if the client can be involved in the right way. The client should never be focusing on the design, he should be focused on identifying the problems with the design and communicating it to the designer. And you, the designer, your job is to help your client do that.