Tips on working with a Web design and Development team to get the Website you want

by Startacus Admin

Some good advice on working with a web designer to ensure you get the results you want

Having a great idea on how your proposed website will look and feel is all well and good, however the real deal is getting a Web Design and Development team that can deliver - after all not all of us are Adobe experts! In this post we explore a few tips on working with web professionals to get the website you want. Ideally you should start by discussing costs and budgets. After all,if you only have a couple of thousand pounds to spend, but your site would cost tens of thousands to be designed and built, then get this part of the process sorted first before you set too many expectations on the rest of the process. However, once this is all sorted, check out some of our handy tips for where to go next:

Meet with the team
It’s best to contact several Web Designers and Developers with your project brief and requirements. You will most probably be asked to meet them and discuss in more detail exactly what you are looking for. Don’t avoid this part of the process, and even if you are not asked, initiate a meeting yourself to discuss the project further. From this first meeting, you will learn so much about the team you are potentially looking to work with. Consider how much have they actually read your project brief? How much have they prepared for your meeting? How much do they know about you and your business? What type of passion and interest do they show for the project and work at hand? If it helps, perhaps score each meeting in terms of any set objectives you have. If you prefer a less formal approach, which is to be honest probably just as valid, simply go with your gut instincts.

Keep talking and thinking
Forgive me for this rather basic observation, however there are two main parts to your website design and build. The talking part and the doing part. The Web Design and Development teams that you use cannot design and build the website you want simply from a project brief - they can only really get tooth and nail into the project, when they get under your skin and find out about what you really think you want. Depending on how much they are designing in terms of style, this could be anything from logos, images, and even the language used which will all set the tone of your site going forward. Don’t be surprised therefore if you need to have more than a few meetings, simply to chat and have a few coffees. If you are looking for a pretty basic website that simply looks like many others, this part of the process will probably be rather short. However, if you are looking for a bespoke website that speaks and breathes what you and your company is all about, expect the talking part to take some time.

Be honest
You need to be honest and the Web Design and Development teams need to be honest. There will be parts of the process, design, and approach that you don’t like. There will also be suggestions or ideas that you make, that are either not very good, practical or within budget and the web design and development teams that you use will need to be honest with you. Being open and honest is essential for the entire process, since if you let issues run or ignore certain problems from the outset, you are very unlikely to be even 50% happy with the end result.

Collaborate
In my opinion, it is not a case of us and them - the website team you use should come across as very much part of the team. Even though there may be some distance at times between you and the web team you use, you should still get the feeling that you are all equally involved in the process. Creating a website that you want is not an easy process, however it will be made a lot easier if you collaborate and work together to make this an actual reality. If you are mid-way through a project, and feel that there is little communication taking place, it is not too late to unify all of the ‘team’ together.

One more point - who designed our pretty amazing Startacus platform?
We’d so like to keep them to ourselves, but it just wouldn’t be fair. The folks over at ZooCreative are quite frankly the most talented, creative, innovative, imaginative, resourceful and inspiring guys you are ever likely to meet. Their creativity and their patience knows no bounds! For everything from website design and development to branding, illustration and photography, these are the guys to go to. From their little attic design studio in Northern Ireland they plan, plot, scheme, create and sometimes even play. In their own words: “if you have something to show the World, something to sell to the World, something which might just entertain the World or something to help change or save the World, then contact Zoocreative and let us offer you a different approach”. With Startacus they’ve done just that. We heart them big time.

Check out the Design section of the Startacus toolkit for more Design tips, articles and tools.

You might also like to take a look at some of these recent posts;

5 more tips on driving traffic to your website

Setting up a fashion website - An interview with Jo Booth

Building a Website - one Self Starter's tale

 

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Published on: 3rd January 2013