Web design is a partnership. It’s something that requires input, ideas, planning and thought from all sides. In most cases the web designer (us) is not going to know the ins and outs of the client’s business. If a website is truly going to convey a company’s message to the end-user, then the designer has to know what that message really is.

I started thinking about this today as I read the latest article over at A List Apart, written by Jeffery Zeldman. He talks about how important it is for the web designers out there to help educate their clients in a medium that is new, extremely varied, and incomprehensibly vast; how people with a solid understanding of many forms of media have misinterpreted web design; and how web design ultimately has to remember the end user and work in and around their expectations.

In addition to this, he gives a wonderful definition of web design which I feel I should reproduce here:

"Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity."

However, one of the things he doesn’t talk about is the importance of communication between client and web designer. I don’t think this is a flaw, as this is a topic that necessitates an article (or ten) of its own. Still, it’s something that instantly jumped out at me.

Web Designers: Don’t just preach!

We can educate and help our clients to understand the web and the nature of web design all we want; we can demonstrate why one layout works better than another; we can explain why using web standards and designing with accessibility in mind is important; we can do all this, and if we do it well the client will understand what we are doing, why we are doing it, and why it makes their website better. If we do it badly, it is likely that it will either become a bone of contention or a quietly noted negative mark against us as web designers. These are two things that must be avoided.

Ultimately, it’s important to us to explain our methodology, we are proud of our design and coding practice and want our clients to know why their website is not just better looking, but that underneath it is now vastly superior! Web-users will be happier: people can access it regardless of browser or disability. Search engines will like it more: it’s easier to comprehend and each page clearly states what it is.

The two directions of communication

None of this matters though if we don’t start on the right foot. We have to understand the client’s business. To really have a successful job from start to finish we need to know how the client deals with their customers; the image they want to project; the message they want to convey; the products that they want to promote.

This isn’t a simple process, but the important thing to remember is that it requires partnership. It requires client and web designer to communicate and understand each other. The web designer should always lead the way, and hopefully we explain fully what we need to understand about our client.

I’m going to finish with another quote from Zeldman. It serves as a reminder to me that there’s a reason we should feel proud of our work, as our job is not always an easy one.

"[Our] job is not to whine about emerging commonalities but to use them to create pages that are distinctive, natural, brand-appropriate, subtly memorable, and quietly but unmistakably engaging."

It’s not a simple thing, but it’s something that we’ll always aim for, and something that, if done right, will win new customers and bring them back to your website time and time again.