finding a great website design

I have learnt that directly asking a client what they want often leaves me without clear direction, and it’s because a client knows what they want to ‘gain’ from having a website and what they want they visitors to ‘experience’ while on their website, and they ‘expect’ that their web designer is going to know how to put it together.

I like to think that the thing I do best as a designer is ‘read’ my clients, you know, give them exactly what they want. When I am working on a design, I will usually keep every bit of information that I’ve collected about the client in my mind… from my first interaction with them to every email, every conversation, and every remark about other designs.

My design process is not a complicated one and I believe that my clients appreciate the simplicity of it. My clients generally have an idea of what they want their website to look like… not in the same way that a design-oriented person would know… but in sort of an obscure, abstract way.

I have learnt that directly asking a client what they want often leaves me without clear direction, and it’s because a client knows what they want to ‘gain’ from having a website and what they want they visitors to ‘experience’ while on their website, and they ‘expect’ that their web designer is going to know how to put it together.

Every designer has her own method… mine consists of just one initial draft. A long time ago, I did about 3 initial drafts and made my client choose one on which to base the design, but I found that clients were often confused because they liked certain elements of each design, but were not sure how to articulate to me what those elements were. Now, I send just one initial design because usually people are able to easily tell you what they don’t want! I really believe that it’s simpler to describe what we do and don’t like when we have an example to work from, rather than trying to explain a concept without the aid of visuals.