May 11, 2004 | View Comments (24) | Category: Design
Summary: Why we have to make sacrifices with design and how we should handle them.
As a designer I am sure you come up with some really great ideas to implement on your website. However, either you or someone else will chime in on how that specific idea is not usable or does not follow standards. A lot of times you may be hesitant to go with a certain design because you fear the backlash of the community, which some people really do fear, for example if you launched a new site using tables.
Designers should design sites that they are comfortable with calling their own, yet also follow the guidelines that their clients have set for them. However, there are design issues that sometimes clash between the two parties and a lot of the time I have seen that it is the designer who has to make the sacrifices.
Designers are egotistical creatures and they should be. You put all your effort into creating something and to have someone come in and tell you that it won't work can be traumatizing. What is worse is when the client doesn't trust your decisions and decides to add her own little tweaks to the design. As a designer what do you do? “The customer is always right.” Well that works when you just want the money.
Everyone has bills they must pay, but they also have happy lives that they must live. Designers who are passionate about their craft care about the work they put out. If they make a design decision then they do so because they firmly believe in it. Convincing a client about your decision seems a lot easier than having to convince other designers on a team who share different beliefs.
I know there are some out there who will tell me that they just do what the client asks of them because they just need the money and have responsibilities to attend to. That's cool, just don't take this entry so seriously I suppose.
Designers transform ideas into visual elements. Clients should hire you because they have an idea and you are the designer who gives that idea a visual identity. When clients begin to try to takeover the design and the visual identity of the design then that shows a lack of trust in the designer. It's no fun working for someone who shows a lack of trust in your judgement.
Don't get me wrong. I think it is okay to challenge a decision, but at the very least the client should be open to hearing why the decision was made and understand as the designer you bring in your knowledge from the field.
Forgetting clients now we move onto the experts in other fields. You have the Usability experts, the IA experts, and the Design experts. When working separately and sticking to their field they are marvels and benefit everyone. Its when they attemtp to force their ideals upon other fields or make their field seem more important than the rest the trouble begins.
Jakob Nielsen was good when he stuck with usability. Then he just got silly and started to place usability above design. I have heard usability people tell me that usability is important and not necessarily the look of a site, but I have yet to meet a designer tell me that the if the site looks good, but is not usable it doesn't matter. IA people draw up the wireframes and then like to get involved in the aesthetics of the site. It makes you wonder why there are separate fields when everyone seems to be interested in other things.
For some reason it seems the designer is the one that has to make all the sacrifices and not the usability guy. I admit that a lot of the IA I have met are good at offering an opinion on aesthetics without trying to foce their opinion down your throat.
You know that a website is collection of parts. It has usability elements, IA elements, design elements, and coding elements underneath. All these elements work together so why can't the people who build the sites learn to work together?
On personal sites you get to play the everyman role. You have to be the expert of all the elements that form to make your site. Over time you understand what sacrifices you had to make due to the way your site evolved. You listen to other's opinions and some you keep and others you throwaway. When I critique a personal site (Airbag coming next week) I do so without knowing the thought process of the designer. I let them explain why they did what they did and everything makes more sense. You can see why one element had to take precedence over another.
Andrei believes that I should stop using Trebuchet along with other people on the web. Well if you ask anyone around they will tell you that I had Arial on my site and I actually like Arial on the web because it is clean and for me at least, easy to read. However, it is a “cold” font. Trebuchet, if done properly, has a personality that I believe reflects the writings on this site. I don't want people coming here thinking they should fear what they say. Trebuchet gives me an environment (with this design at least) that I feel is more inviting than a Arial or Verdana would be.
So I sacrificed my personal preference and the clean lines of an Arial with the personality of Trebuchet. We all make sacrifices, its just important to understand why we do so. Hopefully you don't have to make sacrifices that effect your satisifaction with the end design.
Trackback URL: http://9rules.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/237
The one peeve I really have is when you send out concepts, and the client sends back a PSD file or something, and their secretary who happens to know photoshop has completely mangled your design, and this is what the client wants to go with.
Or even worse, you go through SEVERAL design revisions of a concept, and you think you are close to an agreement, then the client just makes something up and sends you an image saying "Chop it and code it."
Jeremy Flint (http://www.jeremyflint.com)
Under the Damn Egos section you say that clients should hire designers for their skill and so forth, but I didn't really understand what your point was there... Are you suggesting you should continue arguing with the client about a certain design element? Are you saying you should be a snob and "fire" the client because they won't agree to let you have total creative freedom with their site? That little section never really came to any sort of conclusion, so I was just wondering exactly what you were thinking there... :)
Derek (http://www.twotallsocks.com/)
I can't help but wonder... Where do you get all the inspiration from to write such balanced and insightful posts? Good work.
Didier Hilhorst (http://superfluousbanter.org)
The one major ingredient you're failing to mention is that design is subjective. Design, by its very nature, is meant to be manipulated and changed. Other elements, like IA and Coding, aren't as malleable - so guess what has to be changed to fit?
A client hires you because they think you are best suited to bring their vision to a visual reality.
I would argue that in most cases, if a client tries to "takeover your design" or hands it off to a secretary who knows Photoshop (I can't even fathom this situation), is that one of two things occured.
Either your design did not capture at all the vision - which is the failure of the designer, I believe. Or, the designer took too long in providing a concept and when it was finally provided, it was totally off track or the vision / deadline changed, as will happen in business.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
Jeremy, I hear you. I can't tell you the amount of times that a client has mangled my comp work to satisfy their tastes.
The worst is the cut and paste mentality. "Oh, just cut and paste this information into the design." Many times I have to gently remind them that web development and graphic design is *not* the same as generating a Word document.
kartooner (http://www.kartooner.com)
I can't help but wonder... Where do you get all the inspiration from to write such balanced and insightful posts? Good work.
Paul is the man. So, Paul, when are you going to write a book and release it to the masses?
kartooner (http://www.kartooner.com)
It's tough when your design ideas get whacked, no matter who chops them up, clients, IA people etc. But as designers have the responsibility to to pull it all together in a wrapper everyone enjoys, not just ouselves.
I often find that the toughest aspect is getting the ideas from your clients head into a comp and in a way that they like.
It's easy to justify changes to a design based on IA or usability, there are tangible reasons, but the subjective nature of design itself can be the most frustrating...
Mike P. (http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com.com/sandbox/weblog/)
It's interesting to re-read this post after reading the #12 comment on the previous post.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
For some reason it seems the designer is the one that has to make all the sacrifices and not the usability guy.
Um, speaking up for that "usability guy" (not Yakob:), designers should make sacrifices. But the fact is all members of the team make sacrifices. The client wants X, but it isn't technologically feasible. The system designer wants Y, but it would mean too much in maintenance costs down the road. Everybody sacrifices.
In that relationship between designer and usabilityer, I am not sure that your statement is true across the board. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be.
But if you have a person whose sole job is usability and not design, then you have a person that was hired to test designs and report on findings. In this case, it isn't about the designer having to sacrifice because the usabilityer "said so" and won.
Assuming the usability was done somewhat correctly, there are problems with the design. The designer (with input from the business partner) has then to decide to make changes to the "vision." If so, it is a compromise, not a sacrifice. If it's a sacrifice, then that ego is just too much in the way and please get me a new designer; one who understands the difference between ownership and responsibility.
Besides:
but I have yet to meet a designer tell me that the if the site looks good, but is not usable it doesn't matter.
Usability is just there to test. It reports, you decide. ;) And if you work with a usabilityer that allows ego to get in the way, get a new one that understands the difference between ownership and responsibility.
The business partner/client/customer is the owner. Those hired/employed to create or make changes are responsible to make it as good as possible for the business, the system, and the user.
Matthew Oliphant (http://businesslogs.com)
Unless you provide a means for the client to view your work as it progresses, or you physically show your client the work every so often on a laptop etc, then OF COURSE they're going to want to change things.
I find it weird how some web site developers isolate themselves and the design from the client, then present it to them at a later date, thinking everything will be ok.
Ultimately, YOU should be the one chopping your own designs up, and the client should be the one giving you direction in certain areas.
Throughout the design process (which comes after IA, scope etc), you must constantly show your client what you're doing. They can't be blamed if they hate something you hand them at the end of the deadline, which they have never seen before, or rarely seen.
You have to constantly communicate throughout the entire process of developing the web site.
In my contract I always ask for half the money up front. If the client desides to change the scope of the web site etc, then a new contract is drawn up and they are charged more money. I collect the final half of the money once the client is happy with what I have done, and the web site is ready to put up.
I do everything I possibly can to ensure I meet the needs of the client.
Unless you can actually BACK UP what you're doing, unless you can gain your clients confidence by explaining why you made certain decisions (and having confidence in yourself), then you shouldn't be doing/making that decision in the first place.
Not sure if that was helpful, but i'm in a bad mood and needed to rant.
Robert Lofthouse
Matthew and Robert hve totally nailed this. It's completely about compromise and communication.
Ego equates to a designer holding tight onto a design idea, and then releasing the "final" without any input from the other interested parties.
Success occurs when design is allowed to evolve from input from all directly involved in the project, egos are left at the door, and the project can be seen in development - warts and all.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
Good post, Paul.
No harm in ranting, I think you make some good points Robert. I've gotten into the habit of providing my client with the mockup and then we go through it and I explain to them why I've done certain things in terms of usability. I end up sounding like a broken record with each new client, but the end result is that I'm ultimately less-stressed and they're less inclined to ask for something unreasonable.
I agree that "compromise" is a much better word than "sacrifice". You compromise some aspects of the design for better usability. Or you compromise some elements of usability for better IA. "Sacrifice" implies that you give up something entirely without getting something else in return.
eris (http://www.erisfree.com)
Some great thoughts here. Yes I understand that the designer shouldn't have his way with everything, but there are some cases where it seems the client just brings in the designer to do the html coding and nothing else. Those are the types of clients I am talking about.
If you can't create visually what they are trying to describe to you then yes you are at fault, but then of course they picked you as the designer.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
I go through the same stages as Robert and Eris. Scope out the project, demand half up front, keep the client completely involved until their concept has resulted in a design they are happy to sign off on. Sometimes I want to give them more, and they dont want more - which is a shame. Sometimes they want more and I can't give it for the price - so they get a choice of paying more.
The bottom line with design is - if the client likes it, the users can use it, and it conveys and does what it was meant to do then everyone has won.
And that's the whole idea, isn't it? As many others have said, it's all about trade offs, balance and a whole lot of compromise.
pixelkitty (http://pixelkitty.net)
Yes I understand that the designer shouldn't have his way with everything, but there are some cases where it seems the client just brings in the designer to do the html coding and nothing else.
Then they didn't want a designer - not really - they wanted a developer. Luckily, many developers are designers and many designers are developers. I guess it's a matter of understanding the project before saying "yes, this is something I want to work on".
pixelkitty (http://pixelkitty.net)
"Then they didn't want a designer - not really - they wanted a developer."
I don't think that's quite right. A developer isn't an HTML monkey who just spits out markup on command. For a developer, HTML is an incidental, it's just what wraps around a web application. Of course, for a designer, HTML is an incidental, too, it's just what makes the design work in a browser.
What they wanted was someone to implement their design. A client bringing in a web designer to do just the coding is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. Lots of companies have graphic artists who handle their print stuff, and those people can do a design for the website but wouldn't have a clue how to implement it. The fact that they're asking a web designer should make the designer happy, because it means they didn't try to do it themselves with frontpage (and it means they're going to be able to afford to eat this week... heh).
And for most, it would. There are a few who put the design part before the web part, and that's fine, but they shouldn't be upset when a client isn't interested in their design skills, having only hired them for their ability to magically make a pretty picture into a working website. If you're a designer like that, and you're in that situation, and don't want to be, just suggest that they'd be better off taking on someone less expensive who may not have your skillset but is capable of replicating their design... and to be sure and get in touch with you when they're ready for a redesign. Leaves the client happy and you with a potential contract down the line, and you won't be constantly banging heads with them over design points and in the process dragging down your reputation and the customer's satisfaction level.
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
I'm just going to open myself up to all manner of flaming here from people who say that design is subjective ... but some clients really shouldn't be making decisions about a design.
Design can be subjective, but sometimes there's things that are just so bad that you wonder how anyone could ask you to do them.
I'm talking about people who have e-mail signatures with JavaScript animation in them that only works in Outlook and makes it unreadable in everything else.
I'm talking about people who setup brochures in Word, using 100 x 50 pixel GIFs as page-wide banner images.
I'm talking about anyone who has a GeoCities Web page.
These people hire a designer because they think it's the right thing to do, then they get them to design something which *they* thought of ... something which is entirely unimaginative, draws on no experience and has all the taste of a Jerry Springer participant.
It all comes down to the fact that everyone drew pictures in kindergarten, thinks they are a designer, and they should be able to control the design of something they're involved in.
And how do you know that a client is going to be like this? You don't. You think they've hired you because they've looked through your portfolio and like what they see. And when they ask you to design a Web site for them, you think "great, another opportunity for me to tidy up the Internet with good design, great architecture, and clean coding".
It breaks your heart when you find out otherwise.
Cameron Adams (http://www.themaninblue.com)
I still don't understand how some people are having these problems.
I really don't get how someone can say "it broke my heart when I found out that someone wanted to change the design".
You have to have confidence in yourself and your abilities. As I said, if you can confidently back up your points about why something is a bad design idea, or how it might work if the idea was modified slightly, then you won't have a problem.
At the end of the day: YES you are the designer/developer and they hired you because THEY either a. Can't do it themselves or b. don't have the time to do it themselves.
If you can't back up a design idea or a rejection of one of their ideas with three points straight away, then they deserve to be making that design decision and not you.
I recently had a client who knows nothing about the internet, knows nothing about code and knows absolutely zero about design.
I had a consultation meeting with this guy, he showed me some things that he wanted (which were all crap - basically structured as if it were a word document). I took the basic gist of that and backed up why his design couldn't be implemented on the web. I explained the process to him. I took him through the IA, scope etc first and THEN I did some mockups to show him how his idea could be represented on the internet (over various meetings). Throughout the process he had the upmost confidence in me because he could see I knew what I was talking about. I kept showing him the design as it went through the various stages. OF COURSE he wanted to make slight modifications (colours, elements), and I either applied his change but in a modified way, or explained why it shouldn't be done.
If your client doesn't know what they're doing, they're at least hoping that you do. Rather than relying on your portfolio to talk for you, constantly reassure your clients by talking yourself.
If you are hired to do the html and not the design, then stop crying about how their design is crap, you weren't hired for that job. If you don't want to just be a html buttmonkey for some client, then don't take those jobs.
Robert Lofthouse
Cameron -
I think you're getting design confused with ignorance, usage of the wrong tools, and possibly taste.
Just because someone doesn't understand that functionalities differ across email clients or browsers, doesn't know how to properly size an image, or has a geocities account because it's free speaks absolutely nothing about their taste in design - but rather their lack of ability to bring that design to the surface in an appropriate manner.
For example, I have a client who is a custom homebuiler. He is constantly meeting with his architect, interior designers, vendors and clients to ensure the design of the home is as perfect as it could be. He is also a very good photographer who likes to take beautifully framed photos of his beautifully designed homes and include them in his powerpoint presentations.
The problem is, he'll take his 300 dpi photo and scale down the dimensions of the photo within PPT so it will fit within the slide, thus eventually coming out with 300MB or more presentation. He honestly gets flustered when it will take forever to print this presentation, or the computer lags at times when he's presenting it. The problem is not his design skills (or taste) but rather his implementation of it.
The idea that a client has hired a designer, I would think, is the admission that they need help to get their taste in design done correctly.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
Or we could approach it another way Cameron (promise, I'm not trying to flame you)
You have a blog (business) and through it, you have established a writing style your audience has become familiar with ( a brand).
If you brought in a professional, award winning, writer (designer) to represent and write (design) for you, you'd expect them to match your style and voice - correct?
If they come off sounding like Shakesphere to your Walt Whitman, would you expect them to be "broken hearted" or just expect them to adjust their style to yours?
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
I have heard usability people tell me that usability is important and not necessarily the look of a site, but I have yet to meet a designer tell me that the if the site looks good, but is not usable it doesn't matter.
That's because usability is more important than good looks :)
And if good looks are all you care about, then you're not a designer. No more than an author who only cares about interesting vocabulary.
Sam (http://www.silverstripe.com)
Hopefully, the days of the Lone Designer are waning. This seems to be the persona we are discussing here. The Lone Designer that, while brilliant in many ways, doesn't understand that focusing on art while trying to swim in commerce only works well for a few people.
One truism applies here: there's always someone out there who can do it better than you, in less time, for less money.
These days that "someone" has a refined understanding of dealing with each level of customer on each project. Anyone who doesn't undertsand it will be left in the dust wondering why they spent the money on graphic design school.
Matthew Oliphant (http://businesslogs.com)
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#1
You know I still love you, man. I mean that with as much testosterone as I can muster. Even if you do use Trebuchet. 8^)
As always, another good post. Keep up the good work.
Andrei Herasimchuk (http://www.designbyfire.com)