The last part of this series has to do with feedback, from both the client and users as well as the creative and business types. This should go without saying, but gathering accurate and meaningful feedback is one of the most important aspects of continuing to please clients and effectively meet their needs. Making sure nothing is “lost in the translation” between the client and the creative department is of the utmost importance when delivering feedback.
But the need for feedback is deeper than that. You have to understand that these Web sites are our babies. We put a lot of tender love and care into them. And, as discussed in the last article, we care (or should care, at least) as much about the results of our work as their aesthetic appeal. We care about perfecting our craft and will take as much information as you can provide in making our services and product better for the clients and their clients. Getting feedback is important to us both professionally and personally.
Business types, this might mean you have to get pro-active about gathering feedback. Learn about the types of creative decisions that are made and ask specifically about them—things like color schemes, fonts, white space, navigation schemes, and picture choice. The client may not always know to discuss these, or even give them full attention, but they can have a strong effect on how the client actually feels about the product.
Usability testing is another way to gather feedback from the end users of the product—potentially, the clients’ clients. In reality, though, user testing isn’t limited to a single client’s actual clientele. Anyone can be used for client testing. There’s focus group testing, where you gather people that match the demographic you’re trying to reach and get their thoughts on it; there’s usability expert testing, where you get opinions from people who know usability; there’s even hallway testing (I’m making these up), where you just grab the first person who walks down the hallway and ask them to use the Web site. The important thing is to get someone other than the designer to use the site and give feedback on it.
Feedback isn’t limited to creative considerations, either—sometimes there’s some feedback on the business side of things. There’s a phrase in the creative professional world: “Shut up and color.” It’s what business types sometimes wish creative types would do. I cringe as I write this, but sometimes that’s what we need to do. Creative types may soar to new heights of imagination, but business types get crap done. Creative types need to be allowed creativity, but they sometimes need to be respectfully reminded of the bottom line: results delivered.
But business types have to be willing to hear feedback from the creative types as well. If a feature was added because it was thought of as a small add-on, but ended up being a ten-hour deviation from the main work, that’s useful information to share with the people who pitch creative services to clients. We’ve had a few cases where a service was sold to the client for the equivalent of four hours of work when the actual work took sixteen or more. That’s bad business, it sets a bad precedent, and it’s a waste of the creative team’s time.
Let’s say a client requests message boards to be placed on their Web site. This could just get translated into a work order for Web Design to install some message boards, in which case the client would get their message boards. But it turns out that the client is totally unprepared for the amount of work that goes into managing and promoting message boards, and doesn’t have a strong enough community to keep the message boards going. After two months, the message boards die a long, slow, painful death, and all involved parties are frustrated. Even though the client requested message boards, what they wanted would have been much better accomplished with a blog. The Web Design department could have determined this in a simple conversation with the client.
The feedback should not be interpreted solely by either the creative or business types, as both types will have an incomplete grasp on what’s really going on with the request. That’s not to say that either one will consistently get it wrong—but if you could get two expert opinions on something, why wouldn’t you?
So the third tip for getting the business types and the creative types to play nice: gather as much feedback as possible and keep the lines of communication open. Schedule some cross-training so each department learns what makes the others tick. This makes it easier for us to understand each other’s goals, but also to gather meaningful feedback from the client to improve the current project and make future projects more effective.
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