Are you excited about your project but anxious about how your ideas are going to be executed? Is it difficult to come to an agreement between you and your design team on what you want for your site? If your answer is yes, then you aren’t alone.

One of the greatest challenges in web design is getting the customer and the designers to understand each other. With proper communication and clear expectations, web design projects can be incredibly successful and satisfying, while also being on-budget and on-time.

Your product’s schedule isn’t totally in the hands of your vendor:  it has a lot to do with what you need, how often those needs are revised, and how clear you are about those revisions. So what can you do to keep your project from running longer than originally anticipated? The key is to reduce friction, frustration, and anxiety. After all, having your hired development team pulling their hair out isn’t a recipe for a satisfactory business relationship.

But to really understand what designers are shooting for in a project relationship, you need to know what they are trying to avoid. Because designers and clients come from different backgrounds, this industry often sees clients that fit into one of two categories. Some of them don’t know what they want—these clients can be tricky to work with because the designers are left with a field that’s too open; but some good cooperative conversation and counseling can usually result in an effective and satisfactory project. Others only know what they want when they see it—or don’t see it, as the case may be:  they can’t articulate what they want, but they have a complex and fully-formed notion of what their project is going to end up like.

So the key to improving your relationship with your design team is to be articulate about your wants and needs. Become part of the storied third category of client, the ones who know what they want and are able to describe it.

But you aren’t a web design professional, and so you don’t speak the same language as your design team? No problem! Here are some tips to make achieving a successful project just a little bit easier.

1.       Come to the table with an idea: When you go to consult with the team developing your project, bring an idea with you. Be able to state clearly what your goals are, what needs you are trying to fill, and what functionality you expect. A competent resource-gathering team should be able to help you come up with all this information; and even though it may have to be re-evaluated at various times during the project, having an idea of what you need from the start will ease the design process and help quell misunderstandings.

2.       Do your research ahead of time: If you are looking for a site design, don’t come to the table empty-handed. Look around at competitors or at sites in general, and prepare a list of sites you like, sites you don’t like, and why. This useful strategy is rarely applied, and incredibly helpful if you have difficulty explaining what you are looking for. Relevant examples of things you like and dislike, even if you can’t quite explain why, can get rid of a lot of headaches—as well as hair-loss in the design department. If you can describe in clear design-language what you want your site to look like, then you are a rare individual. For the rest of us, being able to direct the design department to liked and disliked sites can be a boon for making sure the final look and feel of the site is achieved successfully, on-budget, and on-time.

3.       Understand the purpose of IA’s and functional specs: These documents are designed to keep your expectations in line with those of your project team. The information architecture outlines the pages and functionality of your site and the functional spec covers the features of your entire project. Watch these documents carefully. Correct any mistakes in your shared versions of these documents, and be thorough in your review before approving them. Always ensure your IA accurately represents the way you see your site operating. The IA is critical for the designers of your site to use in establishing page layouts and functionality. Errors can be costly to fix later down the road.

4.       Avoid document misunderstandings and conflicts: Be aware that if both you and your developer have issued functional specs or IA’s, the developer’s are considered the working documents unless otherwise noted. If you have features on your spec that you want built, make sure to get them on the developer’s version as soon as possible. Do not expect the developer to build your site based on your versions of the documents.

5.       Be judicious with your features: Only you can keep your project costs from spiraling out of control! Don’t blame the developer if your project specification process results in an over-budget project. Know the features that you need from the ones that you simply want. Be ready to compromise some of your functionality if you have a definite budget to stay within. Web design companies are used to working with a wide variety of clients, some with much larger budgets than others. To provide all the features you want, they can easily spec a project beyond your price point, but will also be very happy to work with you to decide which features are most important, and help get the project down to a workable figure. Keep a firm hand on your budget, and work with your developer to produce the project that’s right for you, and prioritizes the features that are most vital to the success of your venture.

Keeping these simple tips in mind, you should be able to have a better experience with web developers. And many of these tips are applicable in other areas too.

Minimizing misunderstandings will improve how you feel about your own project and the group that built it, and could save you time and money along the way.

So bring those ideas and examples to the table, using the best way that works for you. On behalf of web-developers everywhere:  Our hair will thank you!