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Dealing with clients and design

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23-Sep-09 08:43

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cat

Gold

Posts: 454

From: Australia

Being quite new to the web design side of things, I was just wondering how to deal with awkward client requests that just won't work visually?

For example, your client asks you for a nice spinning globe in the top-left corner. What do you do?

Cat

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http://web.soothed.com.au/
Web design for natural therapists

23-Sep-09 10:03

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simon

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Posts: 1959

Always awkward. I try to acknowledge the reasoning behind the request (to be perceived as global in the case of the globe) and then try to explain sensibly why the requested feature is maybe not such a great idea, and most importantly, suggest an alternative approach.

If that's rejected I'd then create a quick visual to show how their ideas would work, in the hope that when they see it they'll understand why I was saying what I was saying. This has to be something that you don't mind being on the website, because there's a decent chance they'll like it and you'll have to implement it!

If that fails, then I just tend to do it. There's no point in being overly precious about it really! You can only lead them to the water...

Simon

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http://www.PageKits.com
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24-Sep-09 01:39

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matt

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Posts: 3328

From: Southern Highlands, NSW, Australia

I've never understood why clients hire a designer, then start telling the designer how the site should look. Isn't that what they hired the designer for in the first place?!

It's like getting a plumber round to fix your toilet, then telling them what size washer to use.

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Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

24-Sep-09 10:50

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cat

Gold

Posts: 454

From: Australia

Great advice, thanks Simon. Funnily enough in this case the client emailed me out of the blue saying she should trust me more and was happy to go with my original suggestions

Funny how things work out eh?

Matt, I kind of agree, but also think it's good for clients to have some input into what their site looks like. I'll just make sure I remember not to hassle the poor plumber next time they come around