Communicating with clients effectively is a crucial responsibility for designers. Communicating too little can create some major hurdles and frustration on both sides. Not asking for what you need can limit your efficiency and productivity on the whole. Today I'll share some tips and advice for developing you communication skills as a designer.
Communicate early and often
While the end product of your relationship is a deliverable of some kind, healthy communication between you and your client is the key to delivering a product you're both happy with and on a time table you're both happy with. Sometimes you have a client that's eager to be involved and sends you all their thoughts, but more often than not your client is coming to you because they don't have a fully developed vision and need you help forming it. In either case, taking the intiative in communication is key and helps instill confidence in your abilities for your client. When you reach out, it indicates that you care about the project.
Make sure to reach out any time you have a question. Sometimes clients want to step back and let you run with the project, but you'd be surprised how often they actually have an opinion that can pop up later down the road. Asking questions, soliciting feedback, and spending time getting to know your client and their expectations are invaluable practices.
Know what you need to know
Sometimes you're handed a fully developed brief with clear constraints, but often that's not the case. It is your job as the designer to flesh out the bounds of the project you're accepting. Are there stylistic preferences of the client? Do they favor a certain color palette? What and who is this being designer for? Is there anything your client does not like? Any styles that inspire them or that they might want to emulate? The more you know about what your client is expecting, the more effective your designs will be.
If this isn't a practice for you, I recommend developing a questionaire to give to clients at the start of a project. You can make it fairly generic and then tailor it to the specific project, but spend some time thinking through what kind of information you will need to design effectively and efficiently. This survey will accomplish two things:
You get what you need
Your client spends time developing their expectations
The results of the questionaire will give you helpful direction. Let's consider an example. In your survey you ask whether a client has a preferred color or colors for their design and they respond with "green." While this is not particularly precise, now you can dive into building color palettes and proposing different options. This also gives you space to insert your recommendations and explain your thinking.
Set deadlines and communicate progress
Deadlines are helpful in myraid ways, keeping you accountable and keeping a project moving forward and on track. Discussing deadlines and checkpoints with your clients is good practice for, again, setting expectation. If you've ever ordered something online, you know how frustrating it is when shipping is delayed and there's no explanation as to why. As a designer, it's easy to avoid unnecessary frustration for clients by keeping them in the loop. If you're coming up on a deadline and you're worried about making it, your client should know before 3 AM the day of the deadline. Setting check-in points before the deliverable deadline will help you stay on track and help your clients feel like they're actually part of the process. No one likes being left out in the cold, so don't do it to your clients.
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