Why you should fire your colleagues

The title seems a little too harsh, but it’s a piece of advice many website design agencies fail to communicate with clients during a project. Time planning is very important during all stages of website building. Depending on the brief, there is always a preferred amount of time spent designing, as well as a preferred amount of time spent developing. This is all to ensure that the project runs smoothly and the website is live in good time.

During the briefing of a project we would always ask this question,

“Are there any important deadlines?”

And the answer we would normally get is,

“We would like the website up in about 4 weeks.”

We then think to ourselves, “That’s great! it can easily be done!” So our project managers go back to our studios in high spirits, and brief the design team on the project and timescales.

Everything goes well with the initial concepts, which we send off to the client for review. Every now and again we get an email back saying,

“Thanks for the email, I’m just going to check with some colleagues and get their opinion, then I’ll get back to you.”

This is a designer’s worst nightmare. Why? Because it has the potential to really delay a project. What started off as a simple CMS website, turns into a complicated website, and what usually takes 4 weeks then takes 4 months to complete (and I’m not exaggerating). This results in frustration between both parties, and can even jeopardise the quality of work. It also sometimes affects the relationship between the service provider and the client.

So why shouldn’t you get the opinions of your colleagues?

It might not seem like a big deal, but picture this. When a design is shown to a group of people, you have to deal with so many different opinions. What one person likes, another person would dislike. You as a client would end up having to compile all this information, which is often sent as a list of variations in an email. We’ve had cases where there were so many variations requested, that it we ended up designing more than 10 extra concepts (which in the end weren’t used). The time spent making changes over and over again could be spent developing the functions of the website.

Web designers fully understand the need to get the opinions of others, because you want your website to represent the high standard you believe that you provide. It’s good to have a couple of trusted individuals with a good eye for detail helping you make decisions, in fact this is extremely beneficial. It only becomes a problem when there is a larger number of people than necessary giving their own opinions.

How do you avoid this?

Situations like this can easily be avoided by preparing before hand. You should have a general idea of what you want your website to convey from the beginning, and you must be confident that it is just right. Even if you ask for help, the final decision is down to you. Don’t let other people’s tastes have too much of an impact on your vision.