Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating With Your Web Designer

The key to any successful web design project is clear and concise communication. Without a strong idea and good communication, your project will almost always go on much longer than expected and lead to frustration from both your end and your web developers. It can lead to designs which don’t match your needs and needless delays. In this blog, we will discuss how to improve your communication with your developer, to avoid these key issues and ensure all your website projects go smoothly.

The Importance of Clear Communication

Good and clear communication is always vital with any creative project, especially one that has long lasting effects such as the design of a new website. When working with designers, it is imperative that you know what you want and how to get that information across. If this isn’t done, the design team will likely have a misunderstanding in what your requirements are. This will often lead to being presented with designs which don’t fully meet your needs or match the concept you had going into the project.

While this might not seem like a large issue, due to your website designer being happy to go back to the project and work on any feedback to make sure the project is perfect for your requirements, the more back and forth required to achieve the ideal end goal will have a large impact on other areas of the project.

Some areas this may impact you include:

• Additional Costs: While web designers will work with you and complete a few iterations, if designs need to keep being edited or taken back to the drawing board due to the original brief changing from what was originally understood, it is likely that additional charges will be given as this will take much more time and work to design something multiple times.
• Longer Time Frames & Missed Deadlines: If the original brief provided is not communicated clearly to the designer and so a project needs to be completed several times, this will add anywhere from weeks to months of work onto the timeline. This means projects will almost definitely go past originally agreed deadlines, which for time sensitive projects, might delay full campaigns or business decisions.
• Frustrations In The Business Relationship: If additional costs or missed deadlines do occur, frustrations can often start to flare up early into the project. On a long term project such as a website build, this can lead to further communication breakdowns and start a snowball effect.
  
  

The Do’s of Communicating With Your Web Designer

So how can you avoid these issues and help make sure the you have no communication issues with your web designer? The best way to achieve this is to follow 6 key rules.

1. Be Clear & Specific: When you are discussing the project requirements with your website designer, make sure to be very clear when outlining your needs and requirements. The more specific you can be on how you want to come across or how you want sections of your website to work, the higher the chance of the designer meeting your needs first time round.
2. Provide Examples: Before you meet with your website designer, look around at competitors or other websites that are doing something you like and present these during your briefing meeting. When you do, be clear about why you like it and also take that time to highlight some sections that you potentially dislike about the same website. This stops things being down to imagination and provides a much better starting point for your designers.
3. Use Visual Aids: If you can’t find any examples of something you really want on your website, come to the meeting with some rough wireframes and sketches. This can help the designers to discuss and innovate with you on your project and come up with the best ways to develop your new features in a way that meets your expectations.
4. Be Open to Suggestions: While it’s important to know what you want, be open to suggestions for your designers and their expertise. Website designers spend all day in this field and may have some new perspectives that you haven’t come up with that can enhance your project. They may also have some insight into industry standards and legal issues which could prevent some things being done in a certain way so it’s important that the project is a collaborative effort.
5. Set Clear Deadlines & Expectations: If you have any tight deadlines, or need specific things for you website design team, make sure to highlight these from the start. This provides the best chance of your requirements being factored in as well as gives your designers the capability to plan accordingly. This can help prevent frustrations down the line.
6. Keep Regular Communication: Don’t have just one meeting and then be hands off. A website is a large project and needs lots of communication along the way. Delays can come from both sides of a project if your design team need you to supply bits of content or need your input, it’s vital that you keep communication with them as much as it is for them to contact you with updates. Keep in mind that too much communication can also cause issues however so try keep to weekly updates rather than meeting or calling daily.
   
   

The Don’ts of Communicating With Your Web Designer

There are also a number of communication issues that should be avoided during your website design project. These are just as important as the To Do’s to make sure that the communication is as smooth and efficient as possible.

1. Don’t Be Vague: Vague briefs or comments on what you want to change is almost always going to cause confusion in a process that is often subjective. Comments such as “I want something modern” can be a good starting point however modern means different things to different people. Both https://www.linmanuel.com/ and  https://kirlian.xyz/ could be considered to be modern designs however they both look dramatically different from each other. Equally “Make the design pop” could be a great starting point, but going into detail on which bits you would like to stand out or what “pop” means to you is likely to get to your desired results quicker.
2. Avoid Micromanagement: Let your designers come up with ideas and new ways of doing something. Not only will this help you stand out from your competitors by letting them come up with something new rather than a clone of something you have seen before, but letting your designer work in a way that is better for their creative process will help a project move quicker than them trying to adapt to a different way of working for each project.
3. Don’t Change Your Brief Midway: Once a design brief has been agreed upon, do not move the goalposts. A site that has been designed for a specific brief will not work if the brief then gets changed. This will lead to a website being adapted for your purpose rather than being made bespoke to achieve your goals which, often, will lead to the end product being less effective.
4. Don’t Ignore the Designers Advice: While it is always ok to let a designer know if they are going down the wrong path, don’t ignore or shut down their advice when it may contribute to a better product. The Designer will know what works for different industries as well as what an end user will be expecting, the additional knowledge they bring to the table can be a real asset.
5. Avoid Long Delays On Feedback: When a designer sends you their work for you to feedback on, don’t wait weeks to go back to them. It’s always better to strike while the iron is hot and keep the ball rolling. If you wait more than a week, they will have started to forget their thought process and can stop any amendments from being cohesive with the final product.
6. Don’t Expect Instant Results: It is important to remember that design takes time. The designer will need to go away, do industry research, gather ideas, build up the brand, identify any problem areas that need to be addressed and then come up with the final design they present. This can take weeks to get a final product ready to show you at which point you may have some changes you would like to make. Do not expect the design to be completed and finished within a week.
   
   

Conclusion

Due to the length of website design projects, it’s important to maintain a strong client-designer relationship by trusting each other, both from the designer trusting the client has a strong idea of what they are looking for, and from the client that the designer will keep the best interests of the client in mind and produce a design that meets their needs.

You should also be maintaining strong communication throughout the project, keeping the Do’s and Don’ts in mind to prevent delays and frustrations before you achieve the desired outcome. Be responsive to questions, feedback and suggestions to keep communication flowing and ensure that all parties are on the same page.

Most importantly, maintain professionalism at all times. Keep feedback polite and proactive even during disagreements or if a design isn’t 100% perfect first time.