Yes, that title is correct. We don’t design for our clients, and by the same token we certainly don’t design for ourselves! Who we design for is the customer, our client’s clients.
So many designers these days are producing “questionnaires” that ask your favourite colour, do you want a symbol in your logo, what type of font do you like? All of these things -sorry to say- are not up to the company owner. They’re not up to the designer to impart their opinion on either. These factors are established by research.
- Researching the the client’s company
- Researching the industry
- Researching the competition
- Researching the end user/customer
This is where you draw your conclusions from. Not from the company owner’s nor the designer’s “opinion”.
Design is about communication
Nothing more, and nothing less. I sometimes get irritated when people say things as obvious as that to me, and while you might agree and get back to your normal way of doing things; take a minute and think about it.
You’re designing to communicate a message “buy this”, “subscribe here”, “register now”, “enquire”, and if your design efforts are not focussed around those objectives, you might as well be putting lipstick on a pig.
“Don’t try to be original. Just try to be good.”
Paul Rand – 1914-1996
There are a lot of Paul Rand video clips and tributes going around the design community at the moment, and for sure, he deserves all the credit he can get.
There is one very important message I get from him where I can sense his frustration in trying to get his message across. It’s summed up in that quote above, and what it really comes down to is that people need to first become capable of the basics of communication before they can start innovating. Walk before you can run in other words.
This research often times has been done by our customers, which is ‘really’ nice to have happen. I love having a client who is really prepared and has a vision of what would sell to their clients.
- Phil
Yes, that is fine. As long as it’s not just guessing and opinion. Often people design based on their assumptions, or their belief that everyone will like what they like.
I once had a discussion with someone over their site’s redesign. He had every single link open in a new window. I explained why that was probably not a good idea and would annoy people. He didn’t care and said that that is the way he liked it, so that is the way it would be. Needless to say, we chose not to work with this person.
Ross, really great post mate and I couldn’t agree more. The hardest part when it comes to designing, UJ, UAX, etc, is “convincing” the client to allow you to do your work and that it’s not about what they think looks great, it’s so much more about, as you said, the customers – Chances are that a designer will produce far more “conversion” ready designs if he/she is left alone, than having to follow a client’s, guess, at what the website should look like and how it should function. Naturally there is importance of involving the client, chances are that he/she knows far more about the industry than the designer, but it’s more about just painting an outline about the customers than anything else.
Nice thought piece this is!
Great article, could not agree more
Hey Ross, solid post. It is unfortunate that it is often difficult to convince the person holding the purse strings that you know what their customers would like and it is not what they, as owners, think it is. Always good to remember we are salespeople first, and designers second.
In so far as priorities, I’d say no, designer is what we are first, but if you’re talking about what happens in time, then yeah, sure, you’re right.
Definitely it can be a task to explain that a client’s preference is not going to be effective and I wouldn’t have a tantrum and refuse, but I’ll certainly make it known that I strongly disagree with them.