Are you looking for a Web Designer? Make sure you keep an eye on the points below. Most importantly, the key to producing amazing results is by establishing good dialogue and open communication with your Web Designer, so if you’re ever uncertain or have any questions that you feel may not be completely relevant but you’re just curious, don’t be afraid to ask!
1. A Web Designer that asks a lot of questions
This is one that might come across as annoying, or nosey, but a Web Designer that asks you a lot of questions about your business is a designer that genuinely cares about making sure your website matches your business’ brand, goals and history.
A Web Designer that just takes your payment and does what they want will most likely be one that doesn’t really care about the project as a whole, but only as a means for cash flow with a quick turnaround, and we know your business is far more than that!
2. Interested in your business needs, issues and goals
Again, a designer that actually cares about what you are trying to achieve is the right designer for you. If a designer is building around what you need for your customers or clients, while also sticking to general principles and practices, they truly care about what is going to be the result of all the work and most likely wants to build a strong and ongoing relationship.
3. Open minded to your suggestions
This is one I’ve found hard to come by with a lot of designers. The problem is, designers and developers have been around and seen a lot of things, dealt with many clients, worked on many projects. So generally, they are going to have a good rule of thumb, and be able to (hopefully) know exactly what to do.
The problem with this is that sometimes a designer might refuse to listen to what you have to say, not take any of it into consideration. They might be a bit too firm on their work because they are not focused on the end goal. Again, if they really care about your end goal, they’ll be listening to you.
4. Firm with their belief system
While this one may sound like a contradiction to the point above, this one refers to the designer sticking to particular beliefs at certain measures. Yes, if the client wants a different shade of blue, or try something risky, the designer should find a way to work around it. If the client wants very light grey text on white, which will make it virtually impossible to read anything on most screens, then the designer needs to plant their feet firm and let the client know (in a very nice way of course) that it just can’t happen, because it will ruin everything about the site’s functionality.
If it’s about users literally not being able to use a website properly, a designer should always know when to put their hand up, while educating the client on WHY.
Again, if the client wants a basic colour change from red to blue (very general example) and it has some merit, and is what the client is really wanting, for sure, change the colour.
5. Transparency
This is probably the most important point in any form of business or profession. One issue that Web Developers tend to have, is not being transparent with their clients. While I respect that due to the high-levels technicalities and industry specific jargon that can over complicate what seem to be simple matters, it might be hard to be directly open with a client explaining an issue, but using that as an excuse for a client to be left in the dark is just down right disrespectful and bad business. The truth is, most of the time developers will run into problems and it will delay the project. As long as they explain this to the client in easy to understand language, regardless of their reaction, you should appreciate their transparency and honesty.
Any reasonable client will understand if something broke (simply put), and it’s added an extra 3 days to the lead time, there’s nothing else that can be done. And really, if they are unhappy with that, at least they can never say you were hard to work with or kept things from them. Most people just want to know if there’s an issue and how will it affect your timeline. I’ve even had some clients ask if they could pay for the broken issue that I created, purely because I was entirely open with them along the whole way.
Conclusion
To wrap up what has been addressed, the two most important factors when building a website are dialogue and communication. Finding a designer that cares, digs deep into your business, is open minded, transparent and has a strong belief system will prove to be invaluable during this design/build and any future projects. To talk to one of our team members, Contact Icon Digital