5 Mistakes that Make Designers Lose Clients and Projects

When communicating with customers, designers often make mistakes that spoil the impression of working with them. Get rid of these mistakes, and your rating in the eyes of the client will definitely grow.

How do you become a good designer without improving your design? A question that will probably cause bewilderment and some distrust - but is it possible? Practice shows that it is possible. When communicating with customers, designers often make mistakes that spoil the impression of working with them. Get rid of these mistakes - and your rating in the eyes of the customer will surely grow.

Mistake 1. Start drawing right away.

The first thing you must do after receiving the task - answer three questions in detail:

• What is the benefit of the product (service)?

• How does it interact with the current version (if any)?

• How will the product (service) work?

Next, you need to draw a mind map based on the previous answers. You'll have an exact blueprint to follow. You will clearly see how your product works and what can be improved to make it more convenient to use. Only now can you start working on low-fidelity prototypes.

Most designers do the opposite. They immediately begin to draw, create a huge number of iterations and iterate to come to some result, having spent a lot of time and energy.

It's best to stick to the checklist that Acronis designers use when working on websites:

Mistake 2. Afraid to ask additional questions about the TOR.

Most designers perceive TK as something sacrosanct, which can not even be discussed. But the truth is that those who give you tasks, usually operate in a very uninformed situation. This is why it is important to communicate with the task manager and clarify each point.

I cannot get down to the task: it is not clearly formulated.

Often, faced with vague wording, designers do as they see fit. After a while they get a letter from a client: "You know, I decided to add a news block, four buttons, two pages, and eight pictures.

Of course, there are times when the designer is in search. But even then you should contact the customer and say: "This and this we agree on, and then we move on and look for solutions.

Mistake 3. Not understanding someone else's motivation.

The most successful designers are those who understand the client's motivation. The best way to do this is to be in their shoes. Study the world in which the client lives, try to talk in terms accepted in his environment. If it is a factory, go to the production plant, walk around the shops. It often happens that the designer spends all his energy on the selection of fancy fonts or colors, but what matters to the client is how to solve his problem.

Mistake 4. Have poor perception.

In design, there is such a term as perception. The designer must travel to different countries, study the visual culture of cities in America, Africa, Europe, to see how people dress, notice interesting details, and discover something new.

Studying the best work on Behance or Dribbble is not enough to develop the skill of observation. You need to pull yourself out of your own comfort zone and expand your horizons. You can even switch jobs for a while and get a job as a waiter in a cafe, a salesperson in a communication shop, or something else. This kind of experience develops a broad view of the world.

Mistake 5. Treating edits as a tragedy

You shouldn't take a client's edits as criticism. Be prepared to work hard on the design. When you receive revisions, there is no need to redo the entire design, perhaps it will be enough to move some element in a different place. I recommend using templates for this purpose. To get a free book mockup to have a peek at this website.

Sometimes it happens that the client doesn't know certain things. For example, he sends me an edit that asks me to make a fancy voice-over video for the site. And most clients are from Germany, where the Internet is very slow. You can't make a site with a video for Germany, and this must be explained to the client.

Sometimes as a result of the client's edits, you have to sacrifice beauty or functionality. It is important at this point not to lose your presence of mind and not to stop working. It is always possible to find the right solution.

Jeremy Dunt is an experienced web and graphic designer who helped hundreds of businesses to attract clients. Now he is focused on writing article and sharing his knowledge with newbies.