Comments on: Your Client Hates Your Work and You Don't Even Know

By: Brett Widmann

Brett Widmann — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 23:39:15 +0000

This is a great article. It is important to maintain a close relationship with your client so they are comfortable in telling you what they do and do not like. It is also good to give them many updates on the design progress to ensure their satisfaction.

By: Alice Dagley

Alice Dagley — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 08:09:07 +0000

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! It’s really useful.
I must admit that you’re fully right: we should cooperate more closely with our clients during working process to avoid misunderstandings and disappointment by the results. And we should connect our clients as personally fast as possible and as often as possible. However few clients want to get in touch with you every day. They prefer to get the results rather than work with you from the very beginning till the end. Relying on my experience customers hate to fill out different questionnaires, describe their preferences in design and especially describe the functionality they have no idea about. So sometimes it’s very difficult to involve a client into work process. And there are some reasons for that. First, your client may be very busy. In this case you need to extract all the information from the client and discuss all the details on the project and even possible difficulties that you may face during the work. What is more you should get the information in written form to avoid such a response like “I didn’t ask you to do this!” or “It’s not exactly what we wanted”. Secondly, your client may not understand all the features and definitions you use and as a result he is getting tired and trying to avoid cooperation. In that case you need to explain everything as clear as possible. Do not expect from you client to know design or developing features as well as you do! It is stupid! Sometimes you have to be very patient to your clients while they are learning to understand all these features with your help.

By: Chris LeCompte

Chris LeCompte — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:15:35 +0000

Corey,

That’s awesome. I find being proactive can be very hard some days, especially considering it’s so easy to slip into a reactive mindset, so keep it up.

I’ve experienced exactly what you’ve gone through as well. For the portfolio, it can be a tough call. If you have other sites that represent your skills well enough, I’d say exclude it. However, if your portfolio is sparse, and you really want to show others what you’ve created, then perhaps a screenshot of the site (before modification) without a link to the live one will suffice. The thing you want to get away from is passing off the modified site as your creation, especially if it’s a bad design change.

By: Corey

Corey — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:15:06 +0000

I think I’m proactive when working with clients throughout creating their website.

However, I just experienced (after the website has been done for a few months) the client hire another designer and change the color scheme of the website. I’m talking from cold to hot. (blue to pink)

What would you suggest keep it in the portfolio or should I have to throw it out? (I did the design / development for it)