5 things NOT to say to a web designer

Whilst running Jojet Ive listened to countless questions from potential clients; which is great I love to guide
them through the maze of on-line options. However, some questions just make you think oh dear! and here
we go again!:
Note: this is an older post from the now defunct Jojet blog.

1) How much is a 5 page website?

We wouldnt expect a builder to accurately quote if all we told him was that we wanted a 5 bedroom house
thats simply not enough information. So lets not expect a reputable web design company to be any dierent.
All websites are not equal a page is not the standard economic unit used when calculating website cost!
Imagine a web page on your site which simply displays an email address and then compare this to a page
which has an embedded HD video, a 3D demonstration of your latest product and a freshly designed, illustrated logo. These two pages are completely dierent; the eort and cost involved will also be dierent.
The only web agencies which may quote by the page are ones looking to sell you a standard CMS with little involvement from themselves. Such tools can be great for blogs but are not so suited for a highly polished, client
facing, search engine optimised, lean, mean, lead generating machines.

2) I just want a simple site

Ah! Simple! Now isnt that the rub? Think of the iPod. A design classic. Its simple. Really simple.
This simplicity was not arrived at by random accident. It was the product of a deep understanding of design, of
user behaviour and many other factors.
In truth, all websites SHOULD be simple. Simple to operate by your intended target audience. That simplicity is
arrived at via a detailed analysis of the information which each page needs to convey and adjusting the visual
weighting of each chosen page element till the balance best ts the needs of your users.
Simple aint easy.

3) but someone else quoted a lot less?

Just be careful that youre not comparing apples with oranges.
Some web design companies will quote based on a o-the-shelf template, no included SEO, no consideration
of usability and you supply all the copy etc cheep and cheerful. However, another web design company may
be quoting on a bespoke, hand-built, SEO optimised, copy proofed & user experience optimised website. Both
websites but, on closer inspection, completely dierent beasts.
Be careful of making this false comparison and be doubly careful about making a false economy cheap is
not always cheerful! If all you need is a throw away 3 page site then ne, but if youre looking for your site to be
adding bottom line value to your business then thats a dierent matter.

4) we had to pay the previous web designer so we havent got much budget left
Ok. Imagine this scenario. You hire a cheep and cheerful plumber to install a new boiler in your lovely home.
He makes a right mess, the boiler is not connected, radiators in the wrong place, pipes & water everywhere
basically a disaster.
So you re him and, instead, hire a more reputable plumber to sort it all out (that false economy again!).
Now, if you tell the reputable plumber that you cant aord to pay him the full amount because you had to give
some money to the previous plumber, what do you think will happen? Youll hear the soft click of the front door
as he walks away.
Its a shame that the wrong person was brought in for the job in the rst place, a great shame BUT this is not
the responsibility of future tradesman; whether that be plumbing or websites.

5) but surely thats included in the price?!

If you hire a builder (see a pattern here?) to build your 5 bedroom dream house and then decide you want a
garage you would most denitely expect to be charged for it. Its the same with websites.
A reputable web design company will want to ensure that all of your requirements are succinctly captured &
documented. Theyll do this for both of your benets. This way, at the outset of the project, both parties
knowexactly what is being built and what is included in the price.
With Jojet we always write the following into our requirements documents:

If you feel something is missing from this document then do not assume that it is included, please raise it as
an issue. The quotation provided only covers what is explicitly detailed in this document.

THE END
Many of these questions raised here are completely understandable though. As consumers we are much more
used to dealing with plumbers, builders, lawyers etc. Now we dont necessarily understand how these tradesman do their work but we do understand how to deal with them. The web is still relatively new to business and
so this understanding doesnt fully exist yet.
p.s.
Jill Olkoski also wrote a great article on a similar topic. Read it here.

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This entry was posted in Uncategorized on December 19, 2010 [http://joelhughes.com/2010/12/19/5-thingsnot-to-say-to-a-web-designer/] .

12 thoughts on 5 things NOT to say to a web designer

Joel
November 13, 2009 at 6:04 pm

quite Steve,weve both been on the receiving end of some very strange client specs!Part 2 will be more about
how to avoid these pitfalls any hints and tips youve picked up along the way will be gratefully received. Joel
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Oli Christie
November 13, 2009 at 6:06 pm

Interesting that you only oer your clients one design route. Weve found that this can actually be counter productive as you change it and change it.We normally go with three routes. Then the client can actually buy one
route and its less likely to be tweaked to death.It takes longer initially, but saves time in the long run. Weve
learnt from very painful experience!PS A client once asked me to fax over a Flash banner
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Joel
November 13, 2009 at 6:08 pm

Glad you like it Dan! Experience has taught me that explaining pricing and issues in terms of what people are
used to dealing with (i.e. builders, plumbers etc) helps reassure them that there are common sense reasons for
things costing money.Part 2 is more about hints and tips to make sure things go right from day 1 if you have
any pearls of wisdom to add thatll be great!Joel
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Joel
November 13, 2009 at 6:22 pm

Thanks for you comments Oli, in my experience Ive found that when companies oer multiple design options
the following tends to happen: the design company only really likes one of the designs (and that is the route
they want the client to go) and the other two are pretty much poor cousins a bit of a waste of time. Im sure
thats not the same with you its just my experience.Also by having multiple designs you open the door to the
mix and match problem this could be good but, more often, this is bad.I think the key is geting constructive
design comments for the client; whether they like the colour blue or not is irrelevant how the design will appeal to their target audience(s) is the key. If you ask someone what do you think of this design? theyll tell you

 its just too wide a question without context.Great comments here everyone thanksJoelp.s. fax over a Flash
bannerinteresting.sure, what version of the Flash player does your fax machine support?. The mind boggles!
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Laura Thorne
November 19, 2009 at 1:38 am

Thats amazing! It wish it was possible to send this out to clients, or to use the builder analogy when youre having a tough conversation about things being out of spec! Instead, we just hu and pu and squeeze more out
of the budget.. Great blog item, more please! IF you can share any tips about how you get clients to understand these items whilst maintaining a positive working relationship, that would go down well!
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Joel
November 19, 2009 at 4:31 am

Hi Laura,thanks for stopping by (lovely site by the way!). I nd the builder/plumber analogy to be very handy it
works in most circumstances!Firstly (and this took me a long time to get my head around) not all clients are
right for you. You dont have to say yes to every client its not just about whether they want to work with you
its the other way around as well. The problem with a client whos a bad t for you is that theyll always be a bad
t; they wont get what you do and will always think youre ripping them o because cousin Jimmy can do a
WHOLE website for 150. Theyre unlikely to be the type of client who will recommend you and be good advocates for your business this is bad as I dont know about you but recommendation/word-of-mouth is a very
good source for us.Youve got to get client buy in right at the start they need to under stand the process and
why it exists for their benet as much as yours. I take great pains to explain our process and why it is the way it
is. If they buy into that process then that already qualies them in as the type of clients who are a good t to
work with us. If they dont like it then that probably saves us a load of grief.Hope that helps Joel
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Laura Thorne
November 19, 2009 at 5:30 pm

Joel I was thinking about your point that the design of site needs to be right for the target audience, and not
for the client themselves, which I agree with wholeheartedly, although this can be a hard point to make with
people when their board members dont like purple. However, what are your views on your OWN site? Or any
agencys site for that matter? Our target audience is huge, wide reaching and sometimes hard to dene. Its
hard for us to cater for everyone, so instead weve tried to showcase our work and our personality as any
agency. Is it right for us to produce something that pleases us? I think when a company is shopping around for
an agency, they want to see creativity, something exciting, a bit dierent, dare I say it something cool. If we
based our site on a B2B audience and their typical aesthetic, I feel it would be very dierent.. Thoughts?
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Joel
November 19, 2009 at 6:39 pm

Hi Laura,a key phrase I say to clients is that your website is less about YOU and more about THEM them being their target audience or audiences. Clients need that frame of reference before they give an opinion because, as you probably nd, people nd it very, very easy to give opinions on website designs (its a easy thing
to do)- getting constructive feedback is the key though. Im always pretty robust (but diplomatic!) with making
the client accountable for their feedback. I really think you need to drill this in to clients from day 1 if you get
this bit wrong its like having a bicycle when you actually needed a people carrier its not t for purpose.Your
own site? good point in all truth when anyone ever says to me our target market is everyone this typically
means they havent really thought about it hard enough. If you put aside some quality time to identify the attributes of your target audiences (perhaps using personas etc) then you would soon be able to arrive at a list of
what is important to them and be able to hang your website design around that. That is exactly the process we
are going through as our site is 18 months+ old and really does not represent us/our products & services well.
Whats that saying about cobblers children? Joel
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ben ferrier
November 30, 2009 at 3:46 am

Hi J and friends.Youve probably seen this already but what the heck. Its priceless and pertinent.http://www.youtube.com/benferrier#p/f/10/VfprIxNfCjkBen
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Joel
November 30, 2009 at 9:36 pm

A pertinent (if rather expressive in its language!) video. Another classic one which always makes me laugh is
this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY
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Web Agent
February 28, 2011 at 9:32 am

Ive tried having one client for a website last year. Our talk was very very brief. After telling and giving me his
passwords, website contents, etc, he was ready to leave. I asked him what did he expect to see on his website
what look, layout, etc, and he said I can do whatever I want with it. Not really comfortable with that answer, I
asked him if he had any preferred theme, color scheme and told him briey about what usual websites looked
like. He said he trusted me to make it appealing. I was never been that clueless in my life! So I looked through
his materials and thought of a basic design and made a templatesomething I was not even that condent
about. I showed him and he said, hes leaving it all up to me and I just continue what Im doing. In the end, he
liked the layout and asked me to teach him how to navigate the pages, etc. So I did, because he paid me. I felt I
did something wrong here in treating the clientor maybe something I didnt do.
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Joel Hughes
February 28, 2011 at 9:40 am

Hi, thanks for the comment.I'd be very nervous about a client with so little interest. However, a staged project
(&payment!) process helps here: payment after spec sign o, payment after wireframes, payment after design
sign o etc. I never have a "curtain pulled back moment" with clientstry to always involve them as much as
possible from day 1. Joel
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