ideas worth stealingFeel free to argue with me
I’m working with a client right now that asks me to justify and explain just about every design decision I make. And I’m so glad they do.
As an in-house designer, I used to get questioned about everything. Everything. But since going out on my own, I’ve noticed that the clients who hire me seem to just intrinsically trust me. And this makes sense to some degree. (After all, they wouldn’t have hired me unless they believed I could do what they needed.) But with this intrinsic trust, something else is lost.
The arguments.
It’s too easy to be right all the time if no one questions you. And I don’t want to be right all the time. I want to be wrong so that I can get right. It’s the only way to learn.
Debate is a good thing. Being questioned is healthy. It makes you a better designer. It forces you to make sure you’ve done your best, and that you’ve used sound judgment every step of the way. It enables you to see the holes in your logic, and to see how you can improve your designs, now and later.
Arguments also have a tendency to surface new information. Things you may not have known before and therefore didn’t consider in your designs.
And arguments give you the opportunity to educate your client. To let them know that you don’t just move boxes and arrows around the screen until you decide that something is aesthetically appealing. There’s a lot of science and research behind the design of good web applications, as well as a lot of creativity.
When you design behavior (as we do when designing applications of any kind), there’s a whole lot more to know and examine and think about than whether or not something looks good. Like how people think. And how they think they think. And how they work. And how you can design something that supports what users need despite that it might contradict what they say they need.
And in passing on some of your hard-earned wisdom, you help your clients gain a better understanding of the value of design. And you teach them things they can use and apply on their own in other projects.
I know it’s a hassle to debate everything with your clients. But the benefit of doing it outweighs the hassle.
Posted by Robert on August 27th, 2007
one comment
Hi there,
interesting to read that — at times I wish my customers would just shut up and admire me, what they mostly don´t :-)
However, there are some of the same kind as you describe, and to me this “do whatever you want, it will be alright anyways…” attitude at least smells somewhat funny — after all it´s their project and they pay for it, so I can´t understand this sort of phlegm towards their own “baby”
However, what I found out in order to coax them out of their shell :: after a while you know your customer´s “unexpressed wishes” quite well, and at this point (an existing general trust in your work presumed of course) it´s alright to intentionally *do* a mistake which you know they´ll definitely notice and frown upon. Works !
Cheers,
Günter