As anyone working as a consultant in a digital agency will tell you, this job is not far off that of a circus juggler, except that you are not juggling balls but people and their sometimes very opposing needs and points of view. We are constantly being pulled in different directions and have to act as negotiators on a regular basis to make sure that we strike a good satisfaction balance between the 3 core participants in every project we manage: the client, the end-user and the design & development team.
Need balancing skills as good as these goats’!
Now, before we even think about what each of these participants brings to the table, there are ground rules we need to establish to get everybody on the same page before the project gets going to avoid any major issues down the line:
- Establish and agree on scope of work, objectives and success metrics before anything happens. Nothing should start without these 3 points 100% clear.
- Inform the client about possible obstacles and setbacks. Specially those that relate to the client’s input – content insertion, providing the right images, videos or content, feedback timelines, etc…
- Ensure all decision makers are onboard and involve in every step of the process from day 1. The last thing you want is to get to the end of the design stage thinking everything is great only to be told that actually there is one more person that needs to approve it before moving forward. If that person decides they don’t like it, that is a lot of wasted time and effort.
- Keep written records of everything that is ever agreed to, any feedback you get and discussions you have. If there is a record of what has been approved and agreed to, it’d be pretty impossible for the client to argue about the outcomes as they would have had an active role in making it happen.
- Don’t forget to regularly update the client.
Rules established, it’s time to jump into the balancing act that allows projects to come to live.
Despite agreeing on rules and procedures, disagreements or misunderstandings are all too common. In most client facing positions, it is normally (and begrudgingly) accepted that the customer is always right and solutions are implemented to make him or her happy. However, in web design, the implications of focusing solely on one of the 3 participants’ happiness could be far reaching and affect the long term success of the project. Let’s look at how each of the participants affects a project’s outcome.
The client
Clients are not easy. They come in all shapes and sizes, with different ways of working, communicating and levels of knowledge about the web. Some you immediately click with, others are strictly a business transaction. No matter what your relationship with them though, ensuring they are satisfied with your work is crucial for the success of any agency. Beside the financial ramifications, there are a few reasons you should be listening and taking your clients’ ideas and feedback seriously:
They know their industry better than you
It doesn’t matter if you’ve worked in web agencies all your life, you will never be able to know all the ins and outs of all the different industries you work with on a day to day basis. Even if you specialize in a particular industry, you can’t possibly know the inner workings of a particular company as well as someone that works in it would.
Getting as much insight from your client on how their business works, the impact they expect their web project to have on their overall strategy, how company decisions are made, and any experience they’ve had with previous web development or online related projects, etc…could help achieve a smooth development and a successful launch of the finished website.
They might be right
When you have been working on a design project for a while, it becomes your baby. You want nothing more than for everyone to love it, as you truly believe it is beautiful and perfect and fits the client brief no questions asked. However, when you are so attached to a project, your vision gets cloudy and pride might play too much of a role in denying the reality of it. Also, your views are just as subjective as your client’s – maybe with more facts to back them up but taste is taste at the end of the day.
However, clients are not all seeing all knowing creatures and they hire us consultants to take their insights and through our expertise deliver the best possible results. For this reason, there are a couple of times when it is ok not listening to your clients:
- If they are out of touch with reality of users.
- If they are going on a power trip just to appear as though they are the authority (usually in front of colleagues).
- If they have no web experience – by this we mean they use their computer for little more than answering emails.
- If they lost sight of the project objectives in favor of their personal subjective wishes.
- If the changes they want go beyond the scope of work and they are not willing to pay for them.
If any requests from the client go against your better judgement as a consultant, you have all the right to point it out to them, but please do so in a tactful diplomatic way. After all, they wouldn’t be paying you for your services if they didn’t trust your expertise or valued your insights. But how do you justify your points of view and overcome any difference of opinion you might have with your client? Easy! If you a worthy consultant, you will base your recommendations on not only your experience, but also hard cold data to back it up.
Design in itself can be quite a subjective discipline, but when you know you’ve done your very best in testing and implementing each feature, then you can be confident in explaining your rationale for the design decisions you took using quantitative data – whether through presenting case studies, A/B testing or usability testing results. Done this way, you are able to justify not only every last detail, but how everything ties in together as a whole and hopefully the client will realize that everything was planned and executed with care, and all features have a strong rationale for being there. That said, pick your battles. Not every detail is worth fighting over. If it’s a minor detail that will make your client happy without greatly impacting the final product, let it go...let it go, can’t hold it back anymore…(sorry I had to!)
Now, moving away from Frozen lyrics, in order to have any A/B test results or carry out usability tests, we need participant number 2 to enter the game: the user.
The user
Users are the reason websites exist. If there wasn’t anyone to view them, interact with them and use them for a purpose one way or another, there would be no point to having websites to start with. Nowadays, most design and development leans strongly towards the user-centered approach, with a lot of emphasis being placed on user experience optimization. This is of course a good thing! It is users who keep websites and businesses online, so we should aim to please them and make their experiences in the web as rewarding as possible to hopefully make them want to visit again. Seen this way, you could say that what the user wants is what the client should want too. It makes sense, but nothing is ever as straightforward as this.
Ignoring clients in favor of a 100% user-centric approach could have just as catastrophic results as completely ignoring the user. Most users want to get from point A to point B as quickly and easily as possible, especially when it comes to e-commerce. However, some businesses practices might require slight detours in order to achieve their overall business objectives. For example, some companies might rely heavily on advertising or up-selling as a source of revenue and therefore would rather orchestrate it so that users spend a little longer looking around the website. Even if giving the user what it wants as soon as it wants it is great in terms of UX, you might end up affecting your client’s ROI – in a negative way.
The client-user
It’s also worth noting that clients are also users. Once the website is live, the overall UX stops depending on your team’s developers and becomes the responsibility of the client. They might not use it as a visitor, but they use it as an admin. As such, however they choose to manage their website and whichever resources they choose to put towards this management will greatly affect the experience users have on said website. It doesn’t matter if you developed an amazing photo and video gallery if the client doesn’t upload anything to it, for example. For this reason, here at IT Consultis we make sure every website’s administrator is fully trained by the time their website goes live to prevent the UX from declining and to ensure that they feel empowered, confident and comfortable managing the daily operations of their new website.
Now, UX wouldn’t exist as a concept or discipline if it wasn’t for the design and development team behind every website you have ever seen.
The team
You could say the team is both the project’s enabler and a buffer. They enable visions and ideas to come true, while buffering any conflict that may arise with the client through their expertise, openness to test and try new things and problem solving skills which ensure client requirements are met as flawlessly as possible. In order to achieve this though, it is important to have a team with varied expertise in different content management systems, as each project is different and will require different technology to succeed.
Moreover, it is crucial that the design and development teams work together. Designs, especially those that are particularly innovative or technically complicated to implement, should be discussed with and approved by all those who will be programming the website. Every element should be agreed upon before the client sees it to avoid any conflict within the team down the line.
The team isn’t just a tool though. Listening only to users and clients could create a frustrating or uninspiring working environment for them, especially if they feel they are just being told what to do rather than consulted for their input regarding what they believe is best for the project’s success.
Sometimes what they believe is best, however, might not be appropriate for a particular project due to budget, project scope or time constraints, so as project managers we need to make sure our technical knowledge is up to scratch to be able to fully understand and filter developers’ suggestions when elements beyond our control prevent certain implementations. Needless to say, communication and respect between team members is crucial.
We believe a project is only ever truly successful if our team is proud of their work and happy to showcase it in theirs and our portfolio, which can’t happen unless everybody is listened to and on board.
Conclusion
Although not an easy task, there is nothing more rewarding that seeing a project come together and go live with all participants happy with the results. Unfortunately not all projects are smooth sailing, but if you keep in mind that every person involved in the creation of a website is someone worthy of being listened to and that everyone has their reasons for wanting certain things done a certain, you will be much more likely to achieve a beautiful website, proud clients and satisfied users. Just make sure you listen to your gut, experience and some hard facts too.
If you are looking for a team to take care of the design and/or development of your website, let us know! We’d be happy to help!
