Many web development projects - large and small alike -
can produce difficulties for both sides of
designer/client relationship. There are opportunities for
designers and clients to become frustrated. Most
businesses have little experience of commissioning web
projects, and for designers it is difficult to communicate
their needs to clients.
There are a number of concepts that will help both
sides of
relationship, and most importantly from
client side of
equation, keep costs down.
Spend Smart
Remember what services you are buying. Paying a web
designer to carry out data entry or word-processing tasks
for your web project is not a cost effective use of your
web budget.
Unless you are engaging your designer to carry out
copywriting or copyediting services for you, try to ensure
that
source materials are in a form as close to
final product as possible.
Plan Properly
Get as much work done up front as possible. Changes are
easier in
planning stages than in
execution. If
you are uncomfortable with
colours or layout at
concept sketch stage, it is safer not to assume that
niggles will 'grow on you' as time goes by.
Trust Your Designer
Trust your web designer. Whilst it is true that
customer is always right, but
designer should be more
experienced in
field of Internet design and
development, and should be able to offer you plenty of
constructive advice at all stages. If you cannot trust
your web designer, you may need to find another web
designer that you can.
Know What You Want
Try to establish your own requirements in advance. The
more information you can present to your web designer on
who your company is, what your company does, your target
audience, and so on,
better.
Building a basic profile of your requirements before
engaging a designer is free. Having a designer build a
profile of your requirements from scratch will be
chargeable, even if
charge is not transparent.
Concentrate on your goals and objectives.
Think Results Not Methods
Think more about what you want to achieve than how you