Expectations and Communication - It's Key

Everyone has had that experience. The one where you have an image in your head of how you want your website to look, but for some reason just can't explain it. Then when you see what the designer presents, it's not on the mark and you get extremely frustrated. You blame the designer for not being artistic enough, or not helping you with your idea. But wait, is it really their fault?

Lets step back for a minute and think about this in a different view. Take a brand new house for instance, one that's not even built yet. You know what you want and you know where you want it, but you just don't know how to tell the architect your vision. So do you think you are going to get the house you want? Probably not.

I know it can be hard, but you need to figure out a way to express your image to the designer (or architect in the above example). This is the reason most designers will ask if you have certain sites you like, colors you prefer, styles that excite you, or something to that effect. It's not because they want to copy another site, but rather they want to know if blue will make you happy or really pisses you off. They want to know if Flash is what you really want, but didn't know it was called that.

Communication is key. Ask as many questions as you can think of before having the designer start designing your website. Also, make sure you answer as many questions as the designer needs to ask you. It takes work, and not just on the designers end to create a final product that everyone can be happy with.

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Ignite MediaLLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
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