I Don’t Know What I Want, But That is not it

The I don’t know what I want client. He’s comes off as not real picky and pretty easy going. You think this will be a breeze. He has seen your portfolio, his current site is frontpage version 1 style so anything will be a drastic improvement and he tells you, “whatever you think is best.” You like this guy. As a result you go the extra mile and create a site draft that rocks. It goes way beyond what was promised. You think, what the heck, he is a real nice guy. You email him the draft and smile, he will love it!

Later…..You check your email. There it is. The email from Mr. nice guy telling you what a graphic genius you are and how great the site draft is. You click open and it goes something like this.

Thanks for sending over your idea. The site really does not represent our core business model and the colors really don’t “pop”.  Perhaps you could make the logo bigger and go with a cooler color palette. I like the idea of the buttons changing as you put your mouse over them but it this case I feel it is a bit extreme. The pictures of my products need to really stand out and my phone number needs to be centered…..

Well you get the idea.  All of a sudden Mr. nice guy has more of an opinion that a room full of women critiquing each others clothes. He uses words you never thought he knew. Core business model, palette, pop…what the heck!  Now what? He said “whatever I think is best.”

So you call him. Do you have any sites in mind that are similar to what you want? What is your core business model? What colors do you have in mind? When you asked these questions in the original meeting, he didn’t know what he wanted. “Just to give my site an updated look. What ever you think is best.” He said. Nice guy. Now, all of sudden he is a graphic design, business planning and internet protocols expert.

The best way to handle him is to keep your cool, eat the initial design you spent the extra time on and hammer out the details with the client. If what he is asking for is not advantageous to a quality product, tell him. Try to educate him as to why you don’t want the phone number flashing red and green or why the product images don’t need to be 800 pixels wide on the homepage. He will take a lot more time than you originally thought but overall he really is a nice guy.

Who’s at fault? You are. Never ever give them whatever you think is best. Make them tell you what they want. If you don’t hear it now, you will for sure hear it later. Look at others sites with the client and get his feedback, get any marketing materials his company may have, have him pick a color palette from colourlovers.com or a similar site. Pry it from his very soul. That is your job.