Into The Real World

Yet another crucial part of web designing: the client. Their happiness = your paycheck. Pretty darn important if you ask me. So their opinion should be very high on all of our priorities lists. This can be the most frustrating part of web designing, just based on what I know about people in general. Many can't make up their minds and are never satisfied with what is given to them. All we can do as designers is try to make the process as easy and painless as possible. But how? How do we accomplish this? We must make it as simple as possible by laying everything out to our clients. Our questions are a huge factor in that.

So what do we ask? What topics? When do we ask? How often do we ask? In the thread we looked at on KillerSites.come (Link Here) the user "shelfimage" breaks it down into 3 groups: Fact gathering, Bullshit sniffing, and Getting on the same page. He does a great job of putting important questions into each section but one from each stand out to me the most. First, "What are your expectations of a website?" is very important to get information on their knowledge of websites. Secondly, "What is your budget?" because we all have to worry about what we are gonna get paid, right? Of course! Lastly, "How fast will you need this?" because we all know all good things come with time. If you're late with their website that means they'll be less satisfied. Word of mouth will also be beneficial to keeping clients happy can only help!