You're My Favorite Client

To any designers reading this book: I’m here to help you too. Many clients have never bought design services. Don’t assume your clients come to the table knowing what you need to make the process go well. Feel free to use this book to introduce new clients to the design process. The more your clients know what’s needed to make a project, the more s

If you take something away and the site still meets its goals, you don’t need it. Burn it with fire. Let’s define what we mean by “need”: does it meet a major goal of the business or user? Is this the right place to meet that goal?

Imagine two chair shops across the street from each other. One shop takes the chair’s design into consideration from the start. They hire the best chair designer they can. The chair designer researches other chairs on the market to figure out where they’re lacking. They ask people what they like and dislike about their current chairs, research mate

The company that sent you a bid for $100K may have bid $80K if you’d shown up a month earlier. And the company that bid $250K may have bid $175K for a similarly complex job if you were a nonprofit rather than a luxury resort company. Estimates aren’t really a matter of whether you want to pay $50K or $100K, but whether you’re willing to pay that pa

If someone’s complaining about legacy systems, that means they’re deep in the weeds about to start the most heinous job in web services.

Dealing with legacy systems is like swimming through maple syrup. No one’s legacy systems are in good shape. They’ve been cobbled and duct-taped together for years. The previous redesign probably entailed a quick f

When a designer puts something in front of you, especially if it’s technically tricky, evaluate the effect that piece of functionality has on your deadline. If you don’t know whether something is technically tricky, ask. Here’s a secret: they will always say no. But if it’s tricky, they’ll hesitate for a second before saying no. At which point, ask

We hire professionals because we can hold them accountable. If you get audited, you better believe you’re taking your accountant with you to the hearing. If the credit card processing system on your site goes down, you want to know that your engineering team is on it. You also want to be able to call them into your office and ask what happened. Whe

So when you discuss pricing with your designer (and it should be a discussion), make sure they can stand behind their quote. Have them walk you through it and explain why they’re charging what they’re charging. You should get an itemized breakdown for the project’s major parts. Some designers and studios may even be willing to give you an hourly li

The goal of this phase is that you jump up in your chair and scream, “Yes! That’s it right there. Make it like that!” Be prepared for that moment to take a few iterations, which are normal parts of the process. A designer who nails something right out of the gate isn’t good—they’re lucky. A designer who works with you, listens to your feedback, pay

Let’s say you want an image-heavy site, but you don’t have a photographer or an image editor to maintain it. That’s a major constraint. So we ask if you’re willing to hire one. If you aren’t, we say we can’t design an image-heavy site. If you insist on seeing one anyway, we say no again, because we can’t propose a design solution you can’t sustain.