MarcAmos.com

I might be alone here, but does anyone else think it’s a bit odd that a majority of web firms/agencies are happily giving their clients more than one mockup during the design phase of a project? I’m of the opinion that if enough initial research has been done about the client, their target audience, their goals, their existing brand/identity, their competition, their budget, etc., then the design team should have enough information in their arsenal to come up with a great design that meets most, if not all, of the project’s goals the first time around.

If a mockup is created and, when presented to the client, it’s met with unsatisfactory reviews, then it’s likely that the initial research wasn’t thorough enough or that the client wasn’t clear with some of the information they provided.

Sometimes, though, the client provides accurate information and the design team creates a great mockup that meets all of the project’s goals, but the client quickly turns into a web designer and begins asking the design team to make adjustments, some of which are minor, others, not so much.

It is at this point that the team needs to make some goal-based decisions; are the client’s design requests going to negatively effect the site’s ability to meet all of the goals originally agreed upon? Will they negatively effect the perception the target audience may have regarding the client’s brand/identity? Do any of the requests completely ignore long-standing best-practices or present an opportunity to confuse visitors who are used to common conventions on the web?

If the answer is yes, the design team owes it to the client to discuss their requests and politely inform them that it wouldn’t be in their best interests to make those changes. It’s helpful to remind the client that they certainly know what is best for their customers, but you know how to best deliver that great service and brand/identity of theirs through a website. I often find that it’s this very conversation and a fear of engaging in it that drives many firms/agencies to avoid it altogether by presenting the client with more than one mockup, hoping that they will pick only their favorite one and everyone involved will dance with joy while the process gracefully moves into the next phase. This, though, is rarely what happens.

When presented with more than one mockup, the client often begins to Frankenstein them; meaning, they ask that some design elements and/or features from one mockup be inserted into another mockup. This, of course, frustrates the designers, but the client rightfully assumes that said design elements and/or features can, and should, be plugged into place in any one of the mockups presented to them. It isn’t that easy, as many of us know, since many of the mockup’s qualities are disrupted during such Frankensteining.

Much of this can be avoided by presenting the client with one mockup that achieves all of the project’s goals. If the client resists the design, it’s the design team’s job to politely let them know why certain decisions were made, how they will best meet the goals agreed upon, and why they will succeed at engaging the client’s target audience, resulting in more traffic and higher sales/conversion/etc.

After the client is informed why certain design decisions were made, they still might be very resistant to moving forward with the great mockup that was made. If this is the case, there are a couple options:

• The firm/agency can politely bow out of the project, letting the client know that it is no longer a good fit for either party. It might be considered a huge step backward for the firm/agency, but it’s best to be involved only in projects that result in the team’s best efforts being put online. If this is the path chosen, there is the option of returning the client’s deposit and keeping the mockups for later use, or keep the deposit and send them the mockups they’ve paid for.
• The firm/agency can proceed with changing the mockup or creating a couple more, whatever the client requested. Often, projects like this will never find their way to the design team’s portfolio and can result in a stale, unexciting relationship with the client. In the long run, the client’s visitor traffic and sales goals/conversions will probably suffer and they’re less likely to put more time, money, and energy into future web-related projects of their own.

Again, I might be one of the only people who has this opinion when it comes to offering a client more than one design mockup and I wouldn’t be very surprised if that really was the case. I do, however, feel strongly about this subject since it often results in inefficient web firms/agencies and poorly designed, stale, websites that don’t yield the returns originally expected or meet the goals originally agreed upon, and that, my friend, dilutes the quality and effectiveness of the Internet.