i came up with my own procedures and list of questions to ask when initially meeting with web design clients, during my first years doing freelance design, but i find myself curious today to see what questions other web designers ask in their discovery meetings.

andy rutledge’s take on this:

One way to ensure that everything works well is to also ensure that everyone involved is working in their area of expertise, rather than feebly crawling around outside of it. Therefore, during the discovery meeting the business executives should hold forth on business matters, marketing experts should share their marketing knowledge and plans, sales people should discuss sales issues, and we should take it all in and then apply all that design crap we know so much about: Later. After the meeting.

Design has no place at the discovery meeting. In fact, the term “discovery meeting” should provide some subtle suggestion that we’re there to discover things, not talk about our design stuff …or ask about it. Design has no purpose, no impetus, nor any relevance until all things pertinent to the challenge at hand have been brought to light and understood.

given my clients were always very small starving artists, it always made more sense for me to bring “all that design crap” into the discovery meeting.

andy also says it’s a bad idea to talk about design at the discovery meeting:

To do:

* Do prepare for your creative discovery meeting with plenty of discovery on your own.
* Do make the meeting revolve the client and the client’s aims and needs.
* Do explore why the client’s customers and/or potential customers need the website and what they expect from it.
* Do find out how the client intends to evaluate the success of the project (and then make sure you deliver on this point!).
* Do recognize your responsibility for the client’s success.
* Do convey to the client your sense of responsibility for their success and work to gain their trust.

Don’t do:

* Don’t speak “design” to the client.
* Don’t ask design-specific questions of the client.
* Don’t bring any design example books to the meeting.
* Don’t forget about the needs and expectations of the website visitors.
* Don’t try and impress the client.

also:

Opening a website design gallery book in a creative discovery meeting might seem like the thing to do, but it’s pretty much an amateur hour bonehead play.

Close the book, look at the person across the table and ask a question about their business. Again, their design preferences are not often relevant to the project. Plus, as mentioned before, the client is out of his element when discussing design. Stay in the client’s element (business) so that he can offer relevant information.

very interesting. so far, this goes completely contrary to the way i’ve always done it. i, apparently, am an “amateur hour bonehead.”

this forum thread has people arguing about whether to involve the client in discussions about design choices:

I would agree with that, as a designer I think it’s my job to answer a lot of those questions myself.. i’m being employed so that they don’t need to anwser all these questions themselves
Also, on many occasions i’ve had clients who will say “I like these logos” but it will be completely wrong direction for their own brand.

A short description of the business ideals should be enough to come up with some ideas – simple things that they will be able to anwser like:
what market are they appealing to
what are the selling points of their company (they offer the cheapest or most luxurious options for a certain product/they are the only place to get the service they offer)
I think you just need to understand the company to design a logo.

Things like -sizes/colours etc. are things that fall into the designers area of expertise so you should be recommending what you think is best.

this may possibly why i ran into so much problems with my last client. all of my clients, i have always involved them in the initial creative discovery process. i ask them the point, goals, their competition, etc, but i also ask if they have any general creative thoughts. i ask them if there are sites they’ve seen that they’ve liked, or sites they think are awful. i ask them to imagine that their website is a house, and if so, what kind of house would it be? what would the lighting be like, the flooring, is it pool hall, reserved library, the white house, a comfortable suburban home? what are people to feel when they enter that house, what’s the impression you want them to give?

am i a bad designer for asking my clients that? curious. liquidprint in chicago does the same thing i’ve always done with web design clients:

Step two is a design discovery meeting in which we will ask you questions about your vision for the site’s look and feel. Next, we will create two alternate design mockups for your review. Once you choose a design, we will revise it to your complete satisfaction. On design approval, we create a
series of templates using DHTML drop-down menus, mouse-over effects and appropriate animation.

i’m finding that when i do print design, i don’t involve the client in the design process. i ask them positioning, audience, goals, company profile, etc, but i do not ask for input as how they want the print piece to look. the closest i come is to ask them if they have any pre-existing collateral. i’m not sure why i don’t ask my print clients design questions, but it might be because…. everybody knows what a website is, and everybody’s opinionated about what they want their website to look like, as they consider themselves experts. but print design seems different, my print clients seem a lot more hands off, as if they really don’t know, at all, what they’d want it to look like, and i’m given complete leeway. and i prefer it that way.

regarding web design, if i were to take another freelance client, i do think that… the more experience i’m getting, the less and less i want to involve the client in the design decisions. i want the client to be happy, and for it to be perfectly what they need, but it seems to only involve problems when you involve them in the design process as contributors. why is this a problem? YOU are the designer, YOU are the professional, your client is not. you are the one providing the expertise, and the client is paying you for that service. it’s like getting a professional massage, by an expert: would you pay $90 for somebody to give you a shiatsu massage only the entire time to tell them how you want them to do it? no, you lay down, shut up, let the master perform his/her work, and enjoy it. that’s why they earn so much an hour, because they’re good at what they do.

i think this might be a turning point in the life of a designer, when you get to this point, realize that your clients are paying you for your expertise; all you need to know is their goals, and you provide the design ideas to make those goals a reality.