Comments on: 5 Things Your Clients Should Know

By: jameydesigns

jameydesigns — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Thanks for bringing the light to my world, I found this really interesting!

By: George

George — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 07:53:22 +0000

Good points Paul – I have linked to this article from my own site as well. Thanks!

By: film izle

film izle — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:24:04 +0000

Thanks for sharing good work

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:46:18 +0000

If my client naievely suggested making a logo smaller, I might oblige and show them some alternative approaches also to the problem they tried to solve. As designer, if you convinced yourself that your way is best, it shouldn’t be impossible to bring the client around too. However if we were talking about something more time consuming, I obviously couldn’t oblige if I knew it was a bad decision. Best to avoid this and, as you say, ‘define roles’

‘encourage your client to focus on problems and not solutions’ – that’s a good principle and it’s good to forget too, occasionally, e.g. when the client has a better idea for a design solution, or when the designer identifies misdiagnosis of the nature of the problem, e.g. ‘I need to be high in Google, nothing else matters.’ The problem may not be that the client needs more visitors, but the client needs recurring, *relevant* traffic that converts, now and later. The problem is education.

I like reading this type of ‘educate client’ articles because it shows me many pitfalls and advantages I was and would have been unaware of. E.g.

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/08/freelancing-and-the-power-of-partnering/

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/04/10-tips-for-surviving-the-economic-downturn/

By: Debbie

Debbie — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:42:39 +0000

I completely agree with your comment about a big problem cropping up when the client starts making the decisions that are best left to the web designer. I’m definitely frustrated with a current client in part for that reason.

Once that happens, how do you regain ‘control’ of the design?

Nice article.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:16:41 +0000

The point that we need to encourage companies to appoint a stakeholder with specific ‘ownership’ of the website and ensuring it’s updated is so true. After 14 years in IT consultancy I’ve seen this so many times and I’m still amazed that so few organizations have caught on.

By: abs

abs — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:10:17 +0000

when i make millions im going to donate to this site =)

By: Angus Gordon

Angus Gordon — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:53:40 +0000

Wonderful article Paul, and as a copywriter I obviously agree with point 5 especially!

I’m fortunate to have a close relationship with a web designer/developer who believes in the importance of content, and will often simply include me in his proposals as a matter of course. In fact, it puzzles me that web designers and copywriters don’t build alliances like this more often.

By: Karri Flatla

Karri Flatla — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:30:39 +0000

PS: I agree with Steve Hall. And for goodness sake, get clients to commit their vision to paper before you tackle anything in relation to their website. e.g: as a copywriter, if we can’t agree on a target market profile, I ain’t touchin’ your copy.

By: Karri Flatla

Karri Flatla — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:22:25 +0000

“Frankenstein copy.” Love that.

I ruefully agree with you that design trumps copy in the minds of too many business owners. Why is this? Well, despite our inherent inclination for language, we’re still visual creatures first. Design is sexy. You can impress your friends with it and impress yourself with it … for a while. And then pretty soon the only ones who see the design are the website owners because there is no relevance to the message wrapped in the sexy package.

It’s the thorn in every copywriter’s side. Make my website hot even if ultimately it can only shout as much into darkness.

Thanks for the great post. You obviously put a lot of thought into your content

Cheers.