Client have you down?

I had someone ask me if I had any advice about situations where clients were trying to ruin a project. I’ve had more then my fare share of these – as I’m sure many designers have. Maybe it’s something as simple as adding a ugly logo, or maybe it’s something more serious that hinders the usability or usefulness of the site. Whatever it is, maybe this list of ten ideas will help:

Communicate your a highly skill professional and they are paying you for your skills as a designer and a consultant.
Let them know you keep up on all trends and did competitive research – you know what you’re talking about
Use the analogy of architect vs. bricklayer, you’re playing an architect role (you have the experience and skills) – if they want a bricklayer you’ll point them in the right direction
Let them know you have many clients and don’t like to take work where you’re not taken seriously and maybe it’s time to help them find someone else (if you don’t need the money…)
Request some “testing” on your design (this is a gamble) – enough good feedback will squash any “i’m not sure” feelings
Ask them what they feel the current design is not communicating to the audience, take notes and revise the design (away from the client)
Focus in on one of the changes they are requesting and try to fit it into the design, that may make them loose focus on the other changes (“This change was a good idea! the other did not really work in the design”)
Let them know you’re into the whole experience of the site you’re creating, and you feel like these changes will hurt their business (or the usability of the site, the page load times, etc…)
If you have a contract, talk about how the changes will effect the development and it’s adding more scope to the project.
(Again) If you don’t need the money, walk away. Let them know you don’t like to work this way and you’ll be more then happy to try and find them someone else who could help – but not anyone you like

This entry was posted on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 at 10:16 am and is filed under design, soapbox. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.