Why designers are holding themselves back | December 3, 2011
Have you every been in the situation where the client keeps requesting tweaks to the design or changes in functionality? As you sit moving boxes around the page, the budget is slowly draining away and you’re no longer sure whether the project can be completed on target? In these situations what do you do? Some designers will push back on the client, claiming that these changes were never in the agreed brief and that they had only budgeted for 2 or 3 rounds of design. Others will simply swallow the cost in the hope that the changes are almost finished and in the knowledge that they’ll never find themselves in this situation again. Well not until the next time.
If this is a familiar situation to you, it’s because you’re a designer. This isn’t an unusual experience. Instead it happens to almost everybody to some degree. It’s just the nature of the game; and it’s completely your fault.
Clients come to us with little idea how much a website should cost. Often this is the first website they have ever commissioned, or at least the first in several years. So they assemble a list of agencies, put out a loose brief, and wait for the estimates to come in. If the client has done their homework and selected designers of similar quality and experience, the variation in prices isn’t that great. However most shortlists are assembled in a more scatter gun approach and the resulting estimates can range from the high thousands to the low hundreds of thousands. With little knowledge to base their decisions on, how do they choose?
As humans we don’t carry around a constant notion of value in our heads. Especially not for something we’re inexperienced at purchasing. Instead we take input from our surroundings and make a decision from the range of options availible. So if you’re an inexperienced wine drinker, you walk into the shop, take a look at the different shelves and map your purchasing decisions on to the range of prices available, some perceived notion of quality (often the design of the bottle) and the occasion you’re purchasing for (do I want a cheap wine to take to a party, a mid priced wine a a gift for a friend or an expensive one for a special occasion).
Market prices are dictated by the availability of suitable alternatives. So when an average client is faced with a group of undifferentiated agencies, they will inevitably decide based on price. I’m sorry to say that this is your fault as a designer. You’ve failed to differentiation yourself from the other suppliers and demonstrate why you are worth a price premium. You’ve failed to show that you have a stronger focus on quality, that you have a better team or that your process will help ensure that they’ll get the solution they want. When this happens you’re faced with two alternatives. You can choose to compete on price, or you can walk away.
Sadly far too many designers choose to compete on price. We enjoy what we do so much, we’ll do it for free in our spare time. So when somebody says they are willing to pay us—even if it’s less than what we wanted—we feel flattered and eagerly accept the challenge. The desire to create is so strong in most of us, it clouds our judgement.
Budget conscious clients have a knack of sensing this desperation and a skill at holding designers to ransom. I’ve met far too many designers who have taken projects at or below cost and signed all their rights away just to have a big name brand in their portfolio. Music clients are especially adept at this, but they’re not the only ones. These clients see designers as a mere commodity—there will always be hungrier and more desperate designer around the corner for them to use.
The problem is, when a professional relationship begins with a compromise, it’s very difficult to gain your power back. And to create good design solutions you really need to be in the driving seat, with the client acting as navigator. One compromise on price leads to another compromise on quality and very soon you find yourself a supplier rather than a partner, having to acquiesce to every demand.
We think that budget conscious clients are the norm, but they’re really not. Most clients want to balance between cost and value, while the best ones are willing to pay a price premium for quality. However if you’re unable to differentiate yourself from the competition, price becomes the only deciding factor.
As designers we think that it’s the prospective client that holds the cards. After all, they are the ones with the money and therefore the ability to choose who to work with. This is exacerbated by the pitch, where clients surround themselves by 5 or 6 agencies all competing against each other for the favour of the client. But here’s the dirty little secret in our industry. It’s not the client that has the power, it’s you, the designer.
Clients have the money, but they don’t have the expertise. Design is becoming one of the only business differentiators left, which is why they are coming to you. You, the designer, have something special, something rare and something in demand. The truth is, there are plenty of prospective clients out there, but few good designers to satisfy them. So it’s up to you to drive the engagement, to set your prices and to chose who you work with.
If a client’s budget is too small for you to do a good job, don’t compromise on quality and drop your prices. If you do that you’ll always be stuck in a self imposed price ghetto. Instead, explain to the client why their budget isn’t sufficient and encourage them to reconsider. If you focus on quality while everybody else in the pitch is focussing on price, you’ve successfully differentiated yourself. You may not be able to do this in one leap, but if you push every client to be a little braver, each project you do will be that much better than the last.
If your prospective client isn’t willing to budge on price, it’s a good indication that they won’t be flexible in other areas. In this situation it’s best to walk away. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself working on a project where client expectations exceed what’s possible and everybody loses. These projects become toxic. They sap your energy and eat into your profitability, while delivering little value to the client. Leave these projects for some other poor sap to take on. You’re better than this.
It’s hard leaving money on the table, especially if you don’t know where your next project is coming from. It takes character to turn down a big project from a respected brand, even when you know it’s the right thing to do. However it’s usually worth it. The number of times I’ve seen agencies take on a mediocre project only to have to turn down their perfect client a week later because they are already committed is astonishing. Turning down a project which is under budget closes one door, but you’ve no idea how many other doors this will open in the future.
Some times you have to take what’s offered in order to pay the bills. I just believe that this should be done as a last resort rather than your opening gambit. So let’s stop holding ourselves, our clients and our industry back because we’re so desperate to win work that we’ll drop our prices and compromise on quality. Instead, let’s endeavour to make each successive project we take on better than the last, and in doing so raise the professional standing of our industry and the quality of the web as a whole.
The Next Learning Thermostat | October 29, 2011
It’s amazing how good industrial design can turn something mundane into a highly desirable product. I wonder what other dull, household objects would benefit from similar treatment?
The X-factorisation of the Web | September 19, 2011
Over the last few years I’ve noticed a strange and disturbing trend amongst web practitioners.
There was a time—not so long ago—when passionate individuals would blog about their work for no other reason than to share their discoveries. The more prolific of these individuals built up an online reputation and became seen as experts. Some of the more articulate ones were asked to write books or present their thoughts at conferences, and received a modicum of success.
After years of sharing their knowledge freely, some were able to capitalise on their notoriety by securing jobs at interesting companies or setting up small agencies. A few even managed to make a living off publishing books and speaking at conferences, although how they managed this is anybodies guess. However unlike many professional vocations, being a well known designer wasn’t especially well paid, so most folks did it for love not money.
The early web was a meritocracy. Some people became nodes in the network, sharing information freely, and everybody benefited.
As the industry matured, more blogs started popping up, making it harder to get noticed. Micro blogging services like Twitter favoured the early adopters and amplified the voice of a small group of established “names”. This helped create a more personality driven focus which in retrospect may not have been so helpful.
Those arriving late to game didn’t understand the effort that had been put in. To them it must have felt like the industry was already sown up. That there was an existing hegemony bourn not from merit but from being part of a specific cast or social circle.
Many of these people were angry at the elders, crying foul and blaming back room dealings. “The only reason you’re invited to speak at conferences or write articles” they would argue, “is because you’re friends with the organisers.” While it is true that this can help remove some barriers and give people a way in, it’s not the real answer. The real reason why these people continue to be engaged is simple; they’re good at what they do and bring in the crowds.
Iconically what seems to be a long standing hegemony is changing all the time. There are plenty of “usual suspects” on the speaking circuit who were unknowns just a few years ago. However a chronic lack of talent means that once somebody shows a small amount of aptitude, they are pushed into the limelight and quickly become over exposed. So in a few short months you can go from being a new face on the circuit to part of the establishment.
Without seeing or understanding how people got to where they were, a sense of entitlement started to form. “Why should these people get all the fame and fortune” people would think, “when I’m almost certainly as good as they are”. This is said with no irony considering there is little fame, and almost no fortune to be had. Some of this comes from a sense of youthful ignorance. The Dunning-Kruger effect writ large.
Even if you happen to be a genius in the waiting, there are no Svengali’s to pluck you from obscurity and put you on the pedestal you know you deserve. No Simon Cowell’s in the web equivalent of X-factor. Success, as the saying goes, is 1% talent and 99% effort. So if you want to contribute to articles, write books and speak at conferences, you’re the only person in the way.
Just like the bands of old, you need to play the small gigs first. So tweet interesting thoughts, write good content on your blog and speak at local community events. Don’t wait to be asked to speak as these people aren’t mind readers. Instead approach conference organisers with proposal. My first ever public speaking opportunity was at SXSW, not because I was asked but because I offered.
The cream rises to the top so if you’re good, there’s a strong chance you will be discovered eventually. However if you’re mediocre, don’t expect to get noticed and don’t blame others for you short fallings. The industry doesn’t owe you a living and you have to make your own luck.
More importunity, you should consider your motivations. Are you wanting to write books, submit articles, talk at conferences or run a successful start-up because you have a burning desire to share your knowledge and experience with the world? To push the industry forward in some tangible way? Or are you simply doing it to make a name for yourself?
Just like musicians, fame is the medium for sharing your talent with the world, not the end goal. Otherwise you’ll end up like just another X-factor hopeful—tomorrows chip wrapper.
Conference Nonsense | September 15, 2011
There’s a lot of nonsense being written about conferences at the moment; so as a regular speaker, organiser and attendee of both free and paid for events, I thought I’d redress the balance.
First off there is a big difference between community driven events and professional conferences. I started a free monthly event called SkillSwap way back in the early naughties and know a stack of people who run similar events now. These FREE events tend to rely on local speakers (who typically don’t charge), community organisers (who work for free), venue donations (usually from companies or community groups) and the occasional spot of sponsorship to pay for beer and pizza. These FREE events have grown from small local happenings into large community events like HackDay, BarCamp and Design Jam. You’ll often find them run by a whole committee of organisers and bankrolled by big corporations and local sponsors. They are great fun and provide an opportunity for novices to get a flavour for these kinds of events and maybe cut their teeth on the conference circuit.
Next up you have the semi-professional conferences. Events like Build, dConstruct and New Adventures. These type of events are usually run by passionate individuals or small companies who have experienced the value conferences can give, and want to bring some of that magic back to their local community. This is exactly what the newly found members of Clearleft did upon our return from SXSW back in 2005. We paid close to $2k each from our own pockets to attend this event and found it so valuable to our personal and professional lives that we wanted to do something similar (albeit smaller) in the UK.
These kind of events tend to take place outside of major cities (which are cheaper), in quirky venues (which are cheaper) and pick a mixture of established speakers and up-and-coming talent, and expect everybody to pay for their own lunch. If the organisers are lucky, these type of events will cover their costs and pay their organisers a small amount for their troubles. So to give you a scale of reference, each year dConstruct brings in the equivalent of a single web design project for Clearleft (we probably do 20-30 per year). However it takes significantly more effort to organise than one of these projects.
As an individual or small company it is incredibly risky to put on events like this and I know numerous folks who have lost money on their conferences. As such, organising a conference isn’t the path to riches than many people suspect. In fact it’s an incredibly stressful endeavour that is just as likely to see organisers out of pocket. But people continue to organise these events because they love the industry and desperately want to put something back into the community. As such I really feel for these smaller conference organisers when people accuse them of not trying hard enough or profiteering.
Lastly we have the big, expensive conferences that typically happen over multiple days and multiple tracks (which means more speakers and more venue costs) at professional conference venues (which are pricey) in major cities (which are expensive). As these events are over multiple days, attendees expect to be wined, dined and generally looked after. The costs of running an event like this are extremely high, as are the risks of failure. To give you an idea of the scale of these risks, the up front costs of running an event like UX London was around £100,000. So conference organisers try to mitigate some of these risks by picking big name speakers they know will fill seats.
In the article over at tutsplus, the author bemoans the cheek of conference organisers for charging as much as $1k per ticket, calls into question their motivations, and accuses them of either incompetence or profiteering. Just what you’d expect to hear from somebody who has never run such an event. To explain this they do some really hokey pseudo-maths to show how attendees are being ripped off. However rather than pseudo-maths, let’s look at some more realistic figures.
Let’s assume that this $1000 a ticket conference happens over 3 days with 3 tracks and attracts 300 people. That would indicate an income of $300,000. However once you’ve taken off transaction fees you looking at closer to $275,000. Let us assume that the venue day delegate rate is $100 per day which is actually quite low for a major conference venue. This brings the coffers down to $185,000. As a conference organiser you also have to pay the day delegate rate for all your speakers and volunteers. So let’s say there are 10 speakers per day and 10 staff. That brings your balance down to $173,000. If you pay each speaker $2,000, fly them over for $2,000 and put them up in a $250 per night hotel for 5 nights, that brings it down to a scarily low $15,500. Now let’s assume that wifi is charged at $10 per head, per day. Let’s also assume that the AV set-up is $5k $10k in total. This brings you down to a profit of $300 This gives you a loss of $4,700.
Let’s talk about sponsorship. Say that we get 8 sponsors at an average of $4,000 a piece. That works out at an additional $32k in revenue. Now let’s assume that as part of the package each sponsor will get 2 free tickets to the event, as well as 2 stand passes for their staff. That’s 16 tickets we can no longer sell and 32 day delegate rate fees we’ll have to pay to the venue. So knocking $25,600 off the total bill, this leaves us in profit, to the tune of $1,700.
Let’s also assume we’re going to print up goodie bags and give away a notebook and sharpie at a cost of $30, as Eric suggested in the comments. That’s an additional $9k. Most conferences have a pre and post party. Assuming $1k venue fee (which is very cheap) and say $10 per head on drinks. That’s an additional $8k. It’s always nice to take speakers out for a meal to thank them for the effort. Let’s say we take them out for a $100 a head meal, that comes to an extra $3k. Lastly, we’ve also had to hire a professional conference organisers to help manage logistics. Thankfully she charges just $150 per day. However she’s invoiced 40 days work over the last 6 months, which comes to another $6k.
Totting up my figures here I can see that despite an additional £32k of sponsorship income, we’ve still made a loss of $24,300. Next year it looks like this mythical 300 person conference will actually have to put their ticket price up to $1,081 to make sure they break even.
The truth is that conferences are hugely costly to run and what seems like a massive profit to the untrained eye quickly fades to nothing. So what does this mean for conference organisers. Should all conferences be a single day long and only feature unpaid and inexperienced speakers? Should they all take place in second tier cities in low cost venues and force attendees to bring a packed lunch? Or should they be scrapped altogether, in favour of paid for content on a tutorial site as the folks behind tutsplus (an ad supported and paid for content tutorial site) would have us believe? Personally I think not.
Like all things, it’s about the value proposition. If you are time rich and cash poor; reading books, scanning online tutorials and attending free community events makes a lot of sense. However if you’re cash rich and time poor, you may not have the resources to do this. Instead paying $1,000 vs weeks of private study can start to seem like a darned good investment. Especially if you come away with some brand new skills and a few extra business contacts.
As somebody who has attended a lot of conferences—many of which have come out of my own pocket—I can’t begin to count the value I’ve received. I’ve learnt new skills which have allowed me to charge more for my time or at the very least help me out of tricky situations; I’ve met new business prospects and built a network of friends and associates who provide leads and recommendations; I’ve found new staff for my company and met many people who have found jobs via a similar mechanism; and these are just the tangible things. I’ve met speakers who have inspired me and had hallway conversations that have helped crystallize thoughts I’ve been having for months. I find myself explaining techniques or using concepts with clients that I know I picked up at conferences, although I can’t for the life of me remember which ones. There are so many benefits to attending a conference above and beyond the tangible; it’s difficult to put a dollar value on them.
This reminds me of an article I read a while back about researchers trying to put a dollar value on a holiday to see if it’s worth the expense. They calculated that (and I’m making the figures up here) a $1,000 dollar holiday bought you about $3,000 worth of equivalent happiness. I wouldn’t be surprised if attending a conference had a similar effect on both your happiness and your potential profitability.
Cargo Cults, Artificial Reefs and the East London Tech City | May 16, 2011
Back in November 2010, David Cameron announced plans to turn the Olympic Village in East London into a technology hub to rival Silicon Valley. These type of Grand Plans are great at generating headlines and creating a legacy for all those involved, but how likely are they to succeed? Are we going to inherit a shiny new creative centre in the aftermath of the 2012 Olympics, or will it become just another mediocre science park like the ones clinging to the sides of the M4?
It would seem that successive governments have tried to align themselves with the dream of Silicon Valley, with little success. Back in the late 70s and early 80s I grew up in a town called Bracknell which was supposed to be Europe’s answer to Silicon Valley. It had great transport links, a large business park intended to attract high tech companies, and plenty of social housing for all the staff. Companies like 3M and Panasonic moved in to set up offices, but it never really became more than a administrative centre and distribution hub. In part because the economic and regulatory incentives were’t in place, and in part because it just wasn’t a very nice place to live.
Jump forward to the 90s and it seemed that every region of the UK with more than than a couple of web designers wanted to lay claim to the Silicon label, so we laughingly inherited places like Silicon Glenn, Silicon Fen and our very own Silicon Beach. However if a few large, homogenous tech companies fails to make an ecosystem, a dozen small web design agencies definitely doesn’t.
This time around the government has decided to target the start-up community. “Hey”, they must be saying to themselves, “Silicon Valley has start-ups like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Old Street also has a few start-ups. That must mean that Old Street is like Silicon Valley.” As they say this I picture them leaning back in their Chesterfields, hands clasped behind their heads, feeling awfully smug about the mental leap they’ve just made. Silicon Vally has become short-hand for any and all technology, just as Holliwood has become shorthand for the movie industry.
Of course, the idea that East London in any way resembles Silicon Valley shows a distinct lack of understanding about our industry. However it is incredibly flattering that the government are starting to wake up to the importance of the UK tech sector. In a recent report it was suggested that the UK Internet economy contributed 7.2% to the gross domestic product back in 2009, making it the fifth largest sector in the UK, and just two points behind the financial sector. While many other sectors have been struggling, the Internet has been booming.
The cynic in me may attribute this newfound interest in the web as simply a PR opportunity for the government. A way of aligning themselves with a booming part of our economy in the hope of getting some Halo effect. The more practical side of me hopes that the government are really starting to understand the value of the digital economy and invest appropriately. Sadly, while the plans for an East London Tech City are grand, I worry that they are missing the mark.
All Governments have the tendency to think big, and try to solve big problems with big initiatives. Governments also tend to think in a very linear way and don’t often engage in system thinking. As such, there is a certain amount of cargo cultism going on here. The Government understands that big companies like Google and Facebook have big offices in big science parks. So in order to encourage the next generation of UK start-ups they propose building big offices in big science parks. The problem is, I don’t believe that lack of 5,000 square foot offices in East London is necessarily the thing holding the Old Street start-up community back from global domination.
An East London Tech City may well encourage Google to expand or Facebook to set up a significant outpost in the UK. Especially if they get the kind of tax breaks other countries like the Republic of Ireland have giving in the past. However if these new offices are going to be anything less than administrative and sales centres, the large companies need a mass of highly skilled engineers and designers to populate them. At the moment our current education system is critically failing the technology industry, so the only place to find such people is amongst the very start-ups the government are trying to support. Some start-ups may end up being acquired for talent, but more will probably go out of business as their star developers get poached by Google for twice the market rate. As such, the short term effects of the Tech City could potentially be quite damaging. Like putting a large shark in a tank full of minnows and coming in the next morning, surprised to find that it’s eaten them all.
Rather than building a Cargo Cult technology park in order to summon down the great silvery gods from the sky (or in this case, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and Mountain View), we need to take a more holistic view of the problem. Instead we need to look at the factors necessary to stimulate and grow an ecosystem. In short we need to create an artificial reef.
One of the fundamental things every marine biologist understands is the need for a nursery; a safe place for young animals to grow and learn, free from major predators. In the marine world this is often the mangrove forests. In the web world it should be the Universities, but is more often than not the small design agencies and in-house web teams. So one of the fundamental things the Government needs to do if they are serious about the digital economy is to protect and replenish these nurseries. So they need to invest in the creation of world class design and technology schools to rival those in the US, while at the same time raising the quality of courses across the board. They also need to make it easier for companies to take on Interns and office juniors, through funding and work experience programs.
When creating an artificial reef, it’s very easy to throw a few concrete blocks in the water in the hope of attracting marine life. However the wrong PH levels in the concrete and animals won’t touch it with a barge pole. Instead, you have to understand the types of habitat particular breeds of animals prefer, and create an environment to suite.
Building an industrial park on the Olympic Site is like building an artificial reef with the wrong PH levels. While some companies may be looking for large building in a big industrial park, that’s not the environment most start-ups are looking for.
Instead creative communities tend to form in areas with low cost, quirky offices in interesting parts of town. They have great independent coffee shops just around the corner, relaxed bars and nice restaurants by up and coming chefs. They have art galleries, independent cinemas and music venues; farmers markets, gastro pubs and small fashion retailers. The also have reasonable transport links and low rents. Places like Shoreditch, Bermondsey and now Dalston in London; Southpark, The Mission and DUMBO in the US.
The above description may sound like a cliché or a stereotype (and I am somewhat over egging the pudding here for effect), but if you want to manufacture a new creative hub on the site of the Olympic city you’d probably be better off funding art spaces and offering free rent to independent coffee shop owners than building a traditional enterprise park. Get your architects to create building of character out of brick and stone, rather than giant warehouse sheds. Focus on office space for small and medium sized companies as well as mega corps, and optimise for walking rather than driving. Take a leaf from Malmo council in Sweden, or the folks in Bristol and set up interesting incubators and arts spaces like Minc and the Watershed. Make sure there is high quality training to teach the new generation of technologists, while ensuring the start-up ideas can the funding and support they need.
In short, don’t try to build a scaled down Cargo Cult version of Silicon Valley. Instead create an environment where people can experiment and ideas can propagate. Not through enterprise parks and business centres but through bars and coffee shops. That’s where innovation really happens.
The app goldrush is over – it's time to apply some business sense | April 20, 2011
The rise of smart devices like the iPhone and iPad has led to an application goldrush, with companies racing to stake their claims. In the early days we saw a few lucky pioneers strike gold with novelty apps. There were also a handful of independent developers and well-known brands that invested in user experience and captured the high end of the market.
However, as with most goldrushes, the obvious targets were depleted very quickly. Digital prospectors are arriving to find a very different market, one rife with competition and few obvious deposits to mine. Furthermore, our appetite for apps seems to be dwindling as we fall back on a few must-have staples.
Recent studies have shown that we tend to limit our use to a few core apps and the bulk of others are never opened. Also, smartphone use is still fairly low in the UK, making it difficult to gain scale. So despite newspapers and magazines hailing the iPad as the saviour of the publishing industry, and blue-chip companies rushing to create trophy offerings, does it really make business sense to jump on the app bandwagon?
For a lot of companies the answer is no. Good app design takes a level of time and investment that’s hard to justify commercially. Only the international brands have the mindshare and level of traffic they need to guarantee scale. Even then, most rush out poorly designed and undifferentiated products with no real user need. Who, for example, loves a particular generic high street brand enough to download its dedicated store finder when you can get the information from Google?
One common trend is to create near-carbon copies of your website. These apps are often paid-for in an attempt to claw back some revenue from previously free content. However, this is rarely successful because consumers are savvy and mobile usage patterns are quite specific. If you’re thinking of creating an app that’s almost identical to your web experience, why create it at all? Mobile browsers have come a long way and recent advances in HTML and CSS mean you can now create a mobile-optimised version of your site, which is likely to reach more people anyway, for a fraction of the price.
I’m not suggesting that companies shouldn’t commission apps, we just need to be careful about what we build and why. There’s still gold in them there hills, but it’s going to be a lot more difficult to find and a lot more expensive to extract. We need to view apps as a business rather than a faddish get-rich-quick scheme.
This article was originally published in New Media Age.
Selling Design | April 12, 2011
As the managing director of a design agency, it’s my job to bring in the business. That means talking to prospective clients, writing proposals and running pitches.
I’m lucky to work with some amazingly talented people and together we’ve developed a strong reputation in the industry. I’ve got a huge amount of faith in our team and really believe in what we can achieve. This makes meetings prospective clients for the first time really easy. I simply channel our passion and expertise in the hope that they’ll be convinced by our experience, buy into our vision and be infected by our love of good design. This isn’t a particularly sophisticated sales approach, but then again I’m not a particularly sophisticated salesman, being first and foremost a designer.
I have a good understanding of where our strengths lie, the kind of clients we work best with and the type of projects we excel at. I’m also aware of our limitations and know the type of projects and clients we should avoid. This is partly though intuition and partly though experience. We’ve resisted the urge to grow, so aren’t forced to take on every project that comes our way simply to pay the bills. We’re proud to be a lifestyle business, so it’s as much about doing good work as it is making money.
This puts us in the enviable position of being able to be selective about the work we take on. So when I meet prospective clients it’s as much about assessing the appropriateness of the project and the cultural fit as it is about selling our services. This may sound a little arrogant, but it’s a sellers market at the moment and we want to lend our services where it’s going to find most value and deliver the biggest reward. Too often have we taken on the first project that came along, only to have to turn down our ideal project two weeks later because we no longer have capacity. So one of my biggest recommendations is to be selective about the work you do and don’t be afraid of turning things down. If anything we’ve gained more respect and referrals by turning inappropriate work down than by taking it on and doing a half hearted job.
For a long time I assumed that all design agencies took a similar approach to sales, outlining their abilities in an open and honest manner and letting their clients choose the right company for the job. However the more clients and agencies I speak to, the more naive I realise this assumption has been.
For many people the sales process is seen as a game, and like most games the ultimate goal is to win, irrespective of whether you’re the right person for the job. So I’ve seen lots of projects won by inappropriate companies because they’ve come in with a convincing presentation and a hard to beat budget.
I’ve talked with large London agencies who apportion up to 20% of a projects potential earning to the pitch. One agency head proudly explained how they researched every person at the pitch meeting in order to find their weaknesses. For example in one instance they found that the MD of a company to which they were pitching was a fan of a particularly expensive watch, so they went out and bought the same watch for their MD so they could bond during the break. I spoke to a client handler at another big agency whose sole value seemed to be the fact that she was a member of the exclusive Ivy club where she would wine and dine prospective customers.
If you think this sounds a little “Mad Men” you’d be right. However cunning sales techniques aren’t the preserve of the big guys. I’ve come across numerous small agencies with equally cunning strategies, like the company who insists on pitching first so they can lay “traps” for the agencies that follow. Plenty of agencies will overstate their experience or promise things they know they can’t deliver, just to win the work. It would seem that game mechanics are in full force. Whenever people are pitched in competition against each other the desire to win will often take over.
As an agency we are often asked to provide creative solutions as part of the pitching process, if only to give our potential clients an understanding of our abilities. To this I refuse, explaining that good design comes from a deep understanding of the problem and close collaboration with the client. We’re not being difficult, we just don’t work that way. We’ll happily show off previous work and explain how it solved our client’s problems, but we hate turning design into a beauty contest. It can demonstrate craft, but shows none of the underlying thinking.
We even hesitate at giving out ideas. Not because we think ideas are precious, almost the opposite in fact. A myth abounds that good design is about creativity and there is nothing more creative than a unique idea. This may be true in the advertising industry where novelty is a key factor, but it could’t be further from the truth in digital product design. The best ideas are a product of insight and understanding rather than a flash of creativity. The most appropriate solutions come from evaluating and synthesising these ideas based on a deep knowledge of the problem. By providing ideas during the pitch process you run the risk of being judged on something you know to be shallow and inappropriate. Even worse if these ideas become accepted and form the basis of your whole approach. So we feel that it’s much better to resist the urge of premature ideation and focus on how we get these ideas instead. One method is explainable and repeatable, the other is magic.
The problem is that a lot of people are looking for magic and drama. The pitch is a performance after all, far removed from the skills and abilities you need to actually deliver the goods. So is it any wonder that clients prefer to see an agency creative in colourful trousers and designer glasses excite and enthuse their audience through the power of their ideas alone. That sounds a lot more exciting than an agency explaining that they don’t have the answer to your problems but know how to get it. The first process sounds effortless and fun while the second feels uncertain and potentially hard work. “How do we know if your ideas are going to be the right ones if we can’t see them in the pitch?” A perfectly valid question and one that can only be partially answered, thought our experience and track record.
Is this gradual realisation going to change the way I present our services? Probably not! I admit that our sales strategy is incredibly simplistic and naive. I also realise that we lose more work than we could by steadfastly refusing to play the sales game. However I think designers have an obligation to their craft and a duty of care towards their clients, which goes above and beyond their desire to win work. A sort of Hippocratic oath for design. By sticking to your principles from day one I believe you attract the right projects and the right clients, while maximising your chances of success. Let’s hope that I’m right os the salesmen will have won, and who wants to live in a world designed by salesmen? Not me, that’s for sure.
Stop the press! Design costs money? | March 7, 2011
The most recent guardian technology podcast opened with these headlines…
“On this week’s podcast, we’re looking closely at why a 32×32 pixel digital icon designed for the UK Government’s Information Commissioner’s Office cost £585 of public funds!”
To discuss this topic of national importance, Margaret Manning, the Director of the design agency responsible was bought in and grilled as to why the creation of an icon could have cost so much.
Margaret stated that the actual design and production work would have taken a couple of hours, and the bulk of the cost was actually administrative. At this point Margaret was interrupted by the interviewer, Charles Arthur, who exclaimed with incredulity, how he’d heard that icons could be done in a matter of minutes.
Hearing this I was genuinely gobsmacked. I’ve long been a fan of both the Guardian newspaper and the tech podcast. However It was as if they had somehow been hijacked by the Daily Mail on a slow news week. They just seemed to have no clue what they were talking about.
For a start I couldn’t believe that this story was considered newsworthy, let along lead the headlines. With some Government IT projects costing tens—if not hundreds—of millions of pounds, quibbling over a few hundred pounds seemed trivial by comparison. It reminded me of a story from a few years back where Ashley Highfield from the BBC was criticised for buying two iPods for testing purposes. Oh, the horror of it all!
I also took exception to the fact that just because the interviewer had heard from one web designer that they could create an icon in a couple of minutes, that meant all icons took a couple of minutes. I know somebody who can design a whole website for £100 but that doesn’t mean that all websites costing more than £100 are therefore a rip-off.
Good icon design is a detailed and methodical process. As such it’s perfectly reasonable for an icon to take several hours to create. Add to that the feedback and revision loop and £585 inc Vat doesn’t seem unreasonable for a company charging £600 plus Vat per day.
Even if you were to quibble over their day rate or the exact number of hours it should have taken, it’s not like we’re talking about a clear and premeditated attempt to rip off the UK tax payer. Some times design and production costs money. Deal with it.
The thing that really annoyed me about this story was that it was another example of the appalling way the news media treats the digital sector. On one hand they fawn over big money startups while in the same breath labelling all SXSW attendees as money grabbers. They congratulate costly white elephants like the government’s Tech City initiative while at the same time force a company director to justify why a small piece of design work cost £585 instead of £350. I honestly don’t think that this is a mature and healthy way for the news media to cover what is an increasingly important part of both our economy and our personal lives.
Implying that web designers are systematically over charing their clients is just wrong. Sure there are bad agencies out there with bad practices, but the majority of people I’ve met in this industry are nothing but honourable.
I also think it’s wrong to imply that all government design jobs need to be done as cheaply and quickly as possible or you risk being interrogated by the national press. I personally believe that good design takes time and that taxpayers deserve to be given the same quality of design, and treated with the same level of respect, as any other user.
Note: This article is about the way the Guardian Technology podcast positioned this story and not about the story itself. The actual story was about the wastefulness of government bureaucracy, which I completely agree with. Interestingly this story was sparked by a freedom of information request from a web designer who felt that the creation of an icon should take no longer than 5 minutes. Something with I firmly refute. There’s an interesting discussion over at Hacker News about whether the cost in this particular case was fair or not. The fact that there are 84 comments, with a fairly even split of opinion seems to indicate that it’s not as clear cut as the Guardian makes out. It’s also worth noting that this freedom of information request probably cost the UK taxpayer more than the contested icon itself.
Lies, dammed lies and web analytics | March 3, 2011
At Clearleft we’re an incredibly business focussed agency. So we work closely with our stakeholders to understand their business needs, and then turn these into Key Performance Indicators to track. In the vast majority of cases, our clients KPIs increase after working with us. However on the rare occasion that things go in the other direction, we take it as a matter of professional pride to rectify the matter.
Thankfully we’ve only seen this happen on 4 occasions in our 6 year history. The first time this happened it was a temporary blip and righted it’s self naturally after a month or so. This can occasionally happen when new designs go live and users need to adjust to a new way of working.
The next two times this happened were more of a concern. Bounce rates had shot up, conversions had plummeted and our project sponsors were getting grief from the board. Both clients understandably panicked. One rolled their site back to the previous version while the other took versions of previous designs we’d supplied them, and rolled their own hybrid version.
The funny thing with both these stories was that it turned out there was nothing wrong with either site. Instead the clients analytics packages had been set up incorrectly and they were no longer tracking the whole picture. With one project they had accidentally started tracking spam “attacks” to the site, causing the bounce rate to seemingly go through the roof. In the other instance the client was only seeing some of the conversions due to the fact that several of the processes we now Ajax driven and weren’t registering as completed goals. Adding in some virtual page views and events in Google Analytics seemed to sort the problem.
Analytics are incredibly important, but easy to misread. In fact I always liken managing your website based on analytics to driving somewhere only with the aid of your GPS and not look out of the window. It’ll only give you partial view of your journey and doesn’t account for glitches in the system (I once knew somebody in the middle east with an in built and non-updatable GPS. Land reclamation meant that their drive home from work showed them driving through the sea!)
The final project is still ongoing, and we’re looking into all the various options to see how we can help. However from previous experience I wouldn’t be surprised if this was also analytics related.
So if you see a sudden and dramatic drop in your KPIs after launch it’s tempting to panic and roll back or make dramatic changes in the heat of the moment. Before doing this I urge you to take stock of your analytics setup and if necessary call in an expert. After all there are lies, dammed lies and web analytics.
How much does a start-up really cost? | February 5, 2011
In 1884 Thomas Marks opened his first market stall in Leeds. Over the next few years he opened 20 other stalls around the UK. In 1894, Thomas Spencer invested in the business and retail chain Marks & Spencer was born. From it’s humble beginnings M&S—as it was colloquially called—became one of the UK’s biggest success stories and was the first retailer to make a pre-tax profit of over £1 billion. Companies like WH Smith, Woolworth’s and AMSTRAD all started the same way, so it would seem that in order to make it big, you should start small. Can the same thing be said of the Web?
As the founder of a relatively well known digital design consultancy I’m often approached by entrepreneurs wanting to start their own online business. I try to help them as much as I can, but I’m constantly amazed how little they know about the web or the cost of doing business online.
Starting your own online business has definitely got cheaper over the last few years. For instance you no longer need to buy expensive hardware or suffer crippling data costs. It’s also possible to piggy back off existing technologies and string together open source projects. Even so, setting up a company which you hope will become a multi-million dollar business isn’t cheap. As such you have to invest in proportion to what you hope to achieve.
I often see entrepreneurs lured by tales of plucky geeks starting their own business on a shoestring and making it big. Movies like Social Network don’t help quell the myth of the overnight success. The reality is somewhat different, with many of these so-called overnight successes spending 3 or 4 years in the wilderness and burning through hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of dollars before they make it big. More importantly, for every overnight success, we see tens of thousands of start-ups sink without trace.
Popular culture has created the myth that start-ups are cheap—cheaper than regular businesses anyway. This can be true for designers and developers who band together and use their own labour in the form of sweat equity. However if you don’t have the necessary skills and connections yourself, you have to hire in talent and that isn’t going to be cheap. Good products take time and effort after all.
A competent freelancer will typically cost you around £8k per month—a good agency staffer doubly so. With these rates in mind, an early prototype taking two people a couple of months could cost in the region of £30-60k. For a fully fleshed out beta version, you’d probably want a team of three or four people working on it over a four to six month period. Plugging those figures in you’re looking at anything from £100-350k before you’ve even launched. Suddenly this starts to feel less like a cottage industry and more like a real business.
Having spoken to several successful investors, these figures seem to stack up. It would seem that most investors expect it to cost around £50k to get your proof of concept and around £250k to get that product to market.
In 1978, John Mackey borrowed $45k from the bank to set up a small, natural health store called SaferWay. Two years later they merged with Clarksville Natural Grocery to form Whole Food Market. At 12,500 square foot and a staff of 19, their first store was larger than most health food shops at the time. The place was beautifully designed, the staff were knowledgeable and the quality was exceptionally high. By 1984 they had expanded to Houston, Dallas and New Orleans and continued to grow throughout the eighties and ninties. At the end of 2009 they owned 302 stores in 3 countries and were considered by many as the best grocery store of it’s kind.
The story of John Mackey in not dissimilar to that of Thomas Marks. Both started small and both rose to the heady heights of success. The main differences is that what counted for small back in 1884 was very different to what counted for small in 1980. The competition was stronger and peoples expectations had changed.
I try to explain to potential entrepreneurs that the amount you invest needs to be in proportion with your expectations. If you want to make a living wage then the digital equivalent of a market stall is just fine. However if you want to set up a national or even global business, you need to maximise your chances of success and invest accordingly. Good start-ups don’t come cheap so you need to spend as much on your digital business as would on it’s physical equivalent. It’s as simple as that!
The digital economy act to kill start-up culture in the UK | April 17, 2010
The recent passing of the UK Digital Economy Act has generated outrage amongst the web community. Large media business have effectively lobbied government under the spurious claim that without protection the future of the digital economy in the UK is at threat. However the future of digital isn’t locked inside a few big content companies distributing their goods electronically. The future of the digital economy is in empowering a creative class to produce new and as yet unheard of business opportunities on the web. So rather than protecting the digital economy, the Digital Economy Act will have the effect of protecting outdated business models and harming innovation in the UK and handing over initiative to more liberal and less restrictive countries.
One potentially damaging aspect facing UK start-ups and freelancers is the one makes the owners of open wifi networks responsible for the traffic that passes over the network. This three strikes and your out process that requires no proof and provides no real means of defence will have a damming effect on the coffee shop culture in the UK. Bars, cafes, public libraries and any other wifi provider will now be responsible for the traffic on their network. As such, many will stop providing open access for fear of disconnection, and the cafe working culture so important to the start-up community is at risk of coming to a crashing end.
Considering it’s taken so long to foster this culture, I think it’s going to be a huge loss to the digital economy and a terrible shame. How many potential Dopplers, Moos LastFMs are we going lose because of this? I wonder?
The public sector web design dating game | July 29, 2009
Somebody contacts you out of the blue, possibly through a friend or from an advert you posted on a dating site, interested in meeting up for a drink and possibly more. They like what they’ve seen so far, but before telling you about themselves, they want a little more information. It’s noting big and perfectly normal. They just want a copy of your passport, your last quarter bank statement and the phone numbers of your past couple of dates. Oh, and could you sign this contract agreeing with my standard date conditions assuming I chose to go out with you.
From the persons point of view, this approach makes a lot of sense. They know there are a lot of sharks out there and may even have been bitten before, so prior to releasing any details about themselves, they want to make sure that you are who you say you are. They’ve also dated far too many cheapskates in their time, so want to ensure that you’ve got money in the bank and won’t start scrounging off them, or worse still, run out halfway during the date without paying . Lastly, they don’t want to waste their time, so want to chat to your exes to see what you were like, how you treated them and why they didn’t take things further.
The only problem is, this approach doesn’t make you feel particularly wanted or valued. In fact it’s rather insulting and dehumanising. It starts the relationship off on a negative footing, assuming that you’ll turn out to be a scoundrel and forcing you to prove otherwise. It’s also asking for a lot of personal information without giving anything back in return. It’s all a bit one sided. So if you’re a half decent person you’ll probably turn the offer down and keep looking for a nicer, more reasonable person instead. Somebody who approaches you as an equal and treats you with the care and respect you deserve.
The irony is, in a bid to filter out the scoundrels and wastrels, this person has actually scared off their only chance of meeting somebody nice. Instead, the kind of people who would respond to this tactic are the professional players. The kind of people who stand in a bar every night flashing the keys to their Porsche, hoping to impress you with their designer wardrobes and their well rehearsed patter. The type of people your mom always warned you about. You may date for a while, but ultimately it will be a shallow and unsatisfying experience, and they will quickly move on to their next conquest. For them it’s about the game rather than the quality of the relationship.
Now this is obviously an unrealistic and frankly ludicrous scenario in the world of dating. However it’s the norm when commissioning design services from the public sector. Rather than a polite email or phone call, you’ll often get sent an impersonal email asking you to tender for work. These emails usually take you to some kind of tendering portal that requires a 10 step registration process before you even know what the tender is for. Sometimes you’re given a 378 page RFP (seriously, I had one of these only the other week) which still doesn’t explain what the project is about. At other times, before even being sent the RPF you’re forced to fill in a formal “letter of interest.” These documents can be very long and time consuming, taking days to complete and asking all kinds of intimate questions from the amount of money you make to the racial make-up of your team! They will often include legal terms which force you into a timeline or kick-off date before you even know what the project is about (I had one of these the other week as well)!
The whole process seems dehumanising and designed to elicit the worst response from the worst kind of agencies. Smaller agencies rarely have the time or resources to respond to these tenders, so you end up limiting yourself to sausage factories. Big agencies who spend their whole time responding to tenders in a cookie cutter fashion, going in with the lowest quote in the hope of wining the pitch. No time is spent talking to the clients or understanding the problem, because the process doesn’t allow for this. As such it’s largely as numbers game, devolving design to a pure commodity. So is it any wonder that the majority of public sector sites are so bad if the tendering process actively encourages this type of behaviour?
Why Friends Reunited Failed | March 2, 2009
I was recently interviewed by the Independent on Sunday to get a design perspective on why Friends Reunited ultimately failed. However rather than the design of the site, I think the design of the system was ultimately to blame.
Friends Reunited was one of the first “Social Networks” in the UK, long before the term had even been coined. Like all good web applications it made something that was difficult to do in the real world, incredibly easy. You could now re-connect with people from your past and spark up new friendships. It also tapped into two basic human traits; curiosity and gloating. Whether this was through design or by pure accident, the desire to see what had become of your childhood sweetheart or your school bully proved impossible to resist.
Like all social sites, Friends Reunited relied on the network affect, so when membership reached its tipping point the whole site went viral. However a lot of viruses burn through their fuel so quickly they die almost as fast as they grow, stifled by their own success. So with Friends Reunited once you’d registered, seen what your old friends were doing, connected with the ones you’d wanted to and had a laugh at the (hopefully) tragic lives of your childhood tormentors, there was very little reason to stick around.
The design of the site was delightfully amateurish, which was no surprise considering the background of the creators. However it had a low-fi aesthetic that made it feel genuine; something it shares with it’s later contemporaries like MySpace. The truth is, while a better design would almost certainly helped its fortunes, people are willing to ignore bad design and usability if the perceived value is great. With Friends Reunited there were no credible alternatives or competition so people were happy to make do.
I think one big problem was the business model itself. With so many users, Friends Reunited wanted to capitalise on this by charging a membership fee. Now this was during a time when Internet business models were still being tested, so it’s impressive that they managed to charge for the service at all. However charging for a service changes the whole dynamic of a site and causes people to game the system in order to get the maximum return on their investment. So it becomes less of a community and more of a commercial relationship. Like a lot of commercial relationships, once the value runs out, people will stop paying and leave.
Modern social networks do a much better job at keeping their members engaged than Friends Reunited. So Facebook quickly expanded from a way of getting to know people on campus into a way of connecting with old friend and managing new ones. In fact you can now use Facebook in numerous ways, be that chatting with friends, playing games, managing your social life, flirting or micro blogging. Facebook has managed to create a whole ecosystem and become an essential part of peoples social lives. What’s more, rather than charging for this privilege, they give it away for free and make their money from additional services.
Conversely LinkedIn started life as a generic social networking site but quickly specialised in the field of professional reputation management and recruitment. This model has much more longevity than simply “getting in touch with friends from school” and allows LinkedIn to charge for professional services that help their users solve a real world problem.
Product design and business model speculations aside, I think there is also a big element of timeliness and zeitgeist. Friends Reunited managed to capture the attention of millions of people and was very successful in it’s day. However human attention is fleeting and you can only maintain this until the next cool meme comes along. Because of this I’m unsure if any of the big social networks have much longevity and if we’ll be having the same conversation in 10 years time. Is social networking here to stay or is it just a blip on the evolutionary path of the Internet?
Why I Can't Afford Cheap | February 9, 2009
I remember reading a story once about an octogenarian discussing her most prized possessions with a researcher. She shows the researcher an iron that’s been going for over 40 years and explains how she had to scrimp and save to buy the product and how it ended up out living even her husband. Quizzed on why she spent so much money on the iron she said “I’m too poor to buy cheap!”
Too poor to buy cheap. That simple phase really resonated with me and has stuck with me ever since.
Cheap is quick. Cheap is dirty. Cheap is disposable.
Cheap breaks.
Cheap costs money. It costs money to fix, it costs money to replace.
Cheap seems like a good idea at the time but cheap fails when you most need it.
Cheap is flimsy and unsatisfying.
Cheap is inefficient.
Cheap gets in your way.
Cheap costs you time and it costs you customers.
Cheap always cost you more in the end. That’s why I can’t afford to buy cheap. Can you?
How your online business can survive a global recession | October 16, 2008
Traditional business is simple. You create a product or service you think customers will want, and then spend money to drive people towards that product or service. If you’re lucky, some of those people will want to user your product or service and you’ll make money. This can be through direct charges or, in the case of content creation, selling this attention on to other companies.
During times of economic slowdowns, marketing budgets are usually the first things to be cut. However in doing so you reduce the number of people who’s attention you capture, reducing your potential market, and the whole things turns into a downward spiral. This is why most marketing pundits recommend that you increase your marketing budget during time of crisis, in order to shore up potential customer numbers.
Despite this obvious logic, there is a lack of liquidity in the market and budgets are going to be cut whether we like it or not. So product owners need to think of better, more effective ways of spending their money and maximising their return on investment.
The ironic thing about the preceding couple of paragraphs is that I’ve not actually mentioned the quality or suitability of the product or service, only the fact that marketing spend can drive attention. Yet we all know that it’s harder and more costly to acquire new customers than it is to satisfy existing ones. So rather than driving more traffic and hoping that some of those people will stick, we need to improve the core offering itself.
What does that mean? Well, first off, most websites are incredibly inefficient and converting customers, and can you blame them? Up until now it’s all been about volume rather than efficiency. As such sites are littered with usability problems that literally block your clients from spending money with you. In fact only this afternoon I abandoned a website for its competition because the site was so painful to use. You wouldn’t lay barriers in front of your customers in the real world, yet this is what we’re currently doing every day online. So the first step to slowdown success is to spend time removing these barriers and reducing your drop-out rates. This can be done quickly and for a fraction of what it would have cost to recruit those customers in the first place.
Next, we need to use our understanding of consumer psychology to promote our products more effectively. So rather than just laying out all our wares on the ground and hoping that somebody will wander past and buy something, we need to think about the purchasing process and make it more enticing for our users. This is the stuff that any marketing graduate will have learnt in their first year at school, yet for some reason it rarely seems to make it onto the web. This is largely because marketing departments don’t really get the web and either ignore it completely or shout at the top of their voices. However the web is full of discerning consumers who want to escape from overt marketing, so this stuff needs to be done subtly and with aplomb.
Lastly, we fundamentally need to rethink what we’re selling. Rather than coming up with a great new product and services and then hoping we find a market to sell it to, we need to learn about the needs of our customers and provide tools they actually want. So you need to go right back to basics and start talking to your customers to see what they need. Doing some smart research can show you’re where you’re currently falling down as well as opening up whole other opportunities you never even knew existed, simply by asking questions like “what do you wish this product did that you currently can’t do”. So surveys, customer interviews, and ethnographic studies can be a powerful tool in your business armoury.
One canny pundit once quipped, “people aren’t queuing up to buy your crappy product”, yet we keep trying to sell mediocre goods by upping the marketing spend. Instead, why not do what numerous other companies do and spend your money making your products better. By focussing your attention on building value in your products and providing an outstanding consumer experience you’ll create products that literally market themselves. Or to put it another way, it costs a lot less to market a good product than it does to market a crappy one.
So in order to weather this current economic downturn and come out ahead, we need to start thinking more strategically and less tactically, more about long term vision than short term success. Otherwise we’ll end up with a slash and burn mentality to driving online success. Instead, we need to build better products, we need remove the barriers to adoption, and we need to promote them more effectively. Doing any one of these things will significantly improve your conversion rates, but doing all three will see you weather the current storm and come out ahead. What are you waiting for?
Portfolio Clinic | November 9, 2007
As part of the Brighton Digital Festival, Clearleft will be one of several companies attending the portfolio clinic on Tuesday the 13th of November. So if you’re a local graduate or freelancer interested in furthering your career in the industry, why not pop down and say hi. We’ll be there to critique your work and offer advice on how to improve your portfolio and score that perfect job.
The Real Tao of Deadlines | October 12, 2007
The beauty of Taoism is that it’s a very holistic belief system. Rather than setting down rules and doctrines, Taoism focuses on the natural order of the universe. Nature has it’s own pace, so rather than struggling against the flow, Taoism teaches us to move with it. After all, a young sapling will bend with the wind while the mighty oak gets torn from its roots. Sometimes nature is an unstoppable force and the only way to survive is to understand it’s core essence and be flexible. The same could be said of many a web design project.
In a recent article entitled The Tao of Deadlines, Andy Rutledge lectures that “A designer must never miss a deadline”. While I agree with the sentiment and many of the suggestions, I think the conclusion shows a lack of understanding about then essence of projects and also the Tao.
Sometimes client deadlines are fixed in stone and immovable. These are usually based around some fixed date like a product launch or trade show. However even in these cases, you often find that deadlines are a lot more malleable if quality is at stake. More often than not, client deadlines are a manifestation of a clients desire to see progress. The project may have been on the drawing board for months, and have been the source of numerous discussions and internal meetings. After six months discussion, everybody is so keen to see the project finished, they are only too keen to set a deadline.
Client deadlines are often based on a rough assumption on how long they think a project should take. However, as most clients aren’t experts in design management, there is a very strong chance of underestimating the complexities involved and hence the time it will take. In a desire to please their clients, many design firms will go along with this conceit in order to win work. Unfortunately these agencies end up doing themselves and their clients a huge disservice by over promising and under delivering.
However, even if you are conservative in your estimates, it’s extremely easy to miscalculate deadlines. At the start of a project there are almost limitless possibilities. The Taosists refer to this state of pure potential as P’u (樸). No matter how much documentation the client has written, or how much research and planning you do, you are always operating on limited information. In fact, rather than helping, documentation can hide potential problems and obsfucate matters. Furthermore, what information you do have is often very subjective and open to interpretation. Because of this, the designer will make a best guess estimate based on their feel for the job, the client and previous projects they have worked on. The problem is, all projects are different, and time estimates are more art than science.
As a project progresses, more information comes to light. Issues will rise up and clarifications will appear. The closer you get to the final solution, the more precise your estimates will become. It’s like looking at a block of marble and imagining the statute enclosed within. In fact, the literal translation of P’u is the “uncarved block”. It’s not until you start chipping away that the final form starts to emerge.
I enjoyed Andy’s article, but think he fails to take into account the fundamental Tao of deadlines. Deadlines can stimulate creativity and drive progress. However they can also hinder the quality, virtue or Te (å¾·) of the project. Sometimes designers need more time to think about a problem, developers underestimate the complexity of an issue, or clients are late with sign-off. This has nothing to do with running a bad project or being unprofessional. It’s just the nature of the task. As such, deadlines represent both the dark (Yin) and light (Yang) sides of the hill. They are useful tools, but shouldn’t inhibit the virtue of the project you’re working on.
Setting immovable deadlines is a bit like throwing a boulder in a stream to stem the flow. Water will always find a way around such obstacles. To take a true Taoist approach, you need to see deadlines as guides rather than immutable objects, and be prepared to adapt to an ever changing environment. In short, you need to bend with the wind rather than risk being up-rooted. This is the Taoist spirit of Wu wei, and one we should all strive for.
7 Habits of a Highly Successful Freelance Web Designer | October 22, 2006
I’ve had a few people contact me recently, asking how to make it as a freelance web designer. Rather than answer everybody individually, I thought I’d post my thoughts online. So in my best impression of a self help book, here are my 7 habits of a highly successful freelance web designer.
Love what you do
If you work for a large company, it’s easy to clock in, do your job and then leave it behind at the end of the day. I’ve seen companies where the staff just don’t seem to care about what they do: either the projects they are working on or the profession in general. For them it’s just a day job and they wouldn’t dream of reading a web design book or going to a conference outside office hours.
To be a successful freelancer, you need to have a passion for what you do. Passion (with the aid of caffeine) will keep you working late into the night when the rest of your friends are down the pub or fast asleep. Equally passion will keep you focused, motivated and away from the TV when times are slow. It’s the driving factor that got you into the industry in the first place, and in all likelihood the reason why you chose to go freelance.
Passion is particularly important when dealing with potential employers, be they design agencies or end clients. As somebody who uses freelancers myself, being able to demonstrate your love for the industry is much more important than your experience or technical ability. After all you can teach somebody a new skill, but you can’t teach them to enjoy their work. Ultimately this passion will be contagious and will rub off onto your clients, prospects and the work you do.
Never stop learning
Web design is a multi-disciplinary skill that’s as broad as it is deep. Every day new ideas or techniques are discovered and sometimes it’s hard to keep pace. However the best web designers are endlessly inquisitive and always want to keep abreast of the latest trends and technologies. They will scour the web reading every blog post or article they can find, their RSS reader literally building under the weight of new content. Their Amazon wishlist will be full of the latest titles and they will always have a couple of unread books lying around just waiting to be digested. Simply put, the successful freelance web designer loves what they do and is constantly learning how they can do it better.
Specialise
Having a broad range of skills is vital as a freelancer as you never know what you may be expected to do. However gone are the days when you can get by being a Jack-of-all-trades. Now you need to specialise. Some skills are more in demand than others, but if you’re the top of your field in a particular language or skill, you’ll always be in demand.
Information Architecture is a hot field at the moment, as more and more companies focus on improving the user experience. Good graphic designers are also extremely thin on the ground, especially those who have an understanding of Interface design and the vagaries of CSS. And while on the subject of web standards, it seems that companies can’t find good standards based developers fast enough. Traditional programming languages will always be popular, particularly if you understand higher level concepts such as OOP and UML. However Ruby on Rails is the language du jour (OK, I know Rails isn’t a language), so if you happen to be a Rails expert, you won’t be short of a contract or ten.
It’s important not to specialise at the expense of your other skills. Clients and agencies like well rounded people with a wide set of interests. Your skills should resemble an inverted T. Generally very broad but with one (or preferably more) areas of deep knowledge.
Get a killer portfolio
As a freelancer, your resume isn’t worth the disk space it’s saved onto. Instead what you need is a killer portfolio. If you are new to freelancing, building up a portfolio can be quite tricky. The best way to do this is to contact friends and family and offer to build them a website. I’m not suggesting you do this for FREE as this is potentially damaging to the industry and can also leave you in the difficult situation where your work isn’t valued. If you must do something for FREE, consider offering your services to a charity or community group who just wouldn’t be able to afford the services of a professional designer. Alternatively, create your own personal project or sandbox where you can demonstrate your ideas. I’ve hired freelancers in the past based solely on the basis of their personal work.
If you’ve been working on the web for a while, don’t post up every project you’ve ever done. You’re only as good as your last couple of projects so put your best foot forward and showcase your most recent work. After all, Nobody wants to see a website you created back in 2002, no matter how good it was. People are very visual, so portfolios are a much easier prospect for designers. If you are a developer or Information Architect, case studies may be the better way to go. A good case study will allow you to explain your involvement with the project, justify the decisions you made and demonstrate how you contributed to the success of the project. Above all, be honest. If you didn’t do the design, or worked in partnership with another agency, let people know.
Network like crazy
As the old saying goes, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. This couldn’t be more true as a freelance web designer. The best way to get work is to use your contacts and network like crazy. When starting out, let all of your friends and family know what you are doing. Ask if they know anybody who needs a website and whether they would mind introducing you. If you are going directly after end clients, local business networking events are a great source of contacts. Events like the local chamber of commerce are a great way to meet potential customers or gain those all important referrals.
Targeting end clients can be very time consuming and costly. Instead, consider letting others do the work by contracting direct with a design agency. Agencies are always on the lookout for reliable freelancers, often at a moments notice. These agencies do the hard work of finding and managing clients, leaving you to get on and do what you’re best at. If you can hook up with half a dozen agencies in your local area, you should find enough work to keep you busy. One way to find potential agencies is to email everybody in your local area and let them know that you are available for freelance work. An even better way is to go where other web developers hang out. Geek events.
Going to pub meets, user groups and conferences is one of the best ways to make useful connections. On a basic level, people much prefer doing businesses with somebody they have met and feel comfortable with. Next time they need help on a particular project, they are much more likely to remember you and get in touch. If they know you are actively looking for projects, they are also more likely to recommend you to other people.
Networking sounds like a scary thing to do, but in reality it’s usually just a case of hanging out with people in your industry, sharing war stories and occasionally getting some work out of it.
Manage your time
As a freelancer, you need to make sure you manage your time well, and keep on top of all the administrate tasks you need to do. Many people expect to do less work as a freelancer then when they were in full time employment. However this couldn’t be further from the truth. As well as doing the work you get paid for, you also need to market yourself, manage your projects, do your accounts and everything else that’s involved in running a small business.
When you’re busy, it is very tempting to work all the hours under the sun. Even when you’re not rushed off your feet, the work you have always expands to fill the time available. To combat this you need to put some boundaries on your time and manage your work-life balance. This is particularly true if you work from home. Make sure people know the difference between your work time and your home time. Just because you’re at home doesn’t mean you have time to do the dishes, clean the house and take out the trash. Conversely don’t participate in avoidance techniques like doing the chores, making snacks or watching TV. As well as putting on the pounds, you’ll end up spending twice as much time working as you really need to.
One of the benefits of being a freelancer is being your own boss, so make sure you’re both strict and fair. Feel free to be flexible with your hours, but if you email a client at 10pm, don’t be surprised if they phone or email you outside regular office hours as well. If you find your attention fading, rather than sitting in front of the computer take a walk or go down the gym for an hour. When you come back you’ll be refreshed and much more productive.
Build your reputation
One of the best ways of becoming a successful freelancer is to become the person people want to do business with. That way, rather than searching for new clients, they will come to you. To do this you need to build a solid reputation. You can do this by doing great work and turning past clients into new sources for referrals. You can also build your reputation by sharing your experiences and knowledge through writing articles, blogging and speaking at local events. By building your reputation as an expert, people will be happy using your services and recommending you to others. Blogging is a particularly good way of doing this and is something I highly recommend. When looking for a new freelancer I’ll get a much better sense of their interests and abilities though their blog than I’d ever get from reading a resume. It’s a great marketing tool, so if you don’t have a blog, you should set one up straight away.
So those were my “7 habits of a highly successful freelance web designer”. Feel free to chip in with your own suggestions. Next week: “What Hex Value is your Parachute” and “Developers are From Mars, Clients are From Uranus” :-)
Office 2.0 | October 14, 2006
It feels like we moved in yesterday, but the six month lease on our office is now up and it’s time to move on. Brighton is a great place to live, but there is a distinct lack of good office space available. I put a shout out on our local mailing list for a “designery” office and was surprised by the reaction I got. It seems that “designer” office space has become associated with the worst excesses of the dotcom bubble and is something many people look down on.
I can understand this to an extent as agencies did go slightly mad at the turn of the millennium and start installing roof top sushi bars and astroturf putting greens in their offices. However I do feel that a creative working environment is crucial to the happiness of your team and ultimately the success of your company.
Clearleft may be a fledgling agency, but we have plans to grow. We are currently turning down more work than we can handle and are in the enviable position of being able to pick and choose our projects. We are about to appoint our first full time employee and have two more roles to fill in the coming months. As such we’re looking for a creative space that we can grow into.
Like most agencies we spend a lot of time at work–probably too much if we’re honest. Because of this we want to find a place we look forward to going every morning and somewhere we enjoy hanging out. Being a social bunch we also want somewhere that our friends and colleagues can enjoy, be that popping round for a coffee during the day or meeting up for drinks after work.
A nice environment is really important for the productivity, creativity and happiness of your team. As well as wanting to spend time there yourself, you want the people around you to enjoy their time at work. A creative office is also important for attracting the right kind of people to work for your company. Somewhere people can imagine working and having fun.
We looked at a lot of offices in Brighton but were generally disappointed. They were either overpriced battery farms–cramming as many people into as small a space as possible–or rundown ex-council buildings. We found a couple of possibilities including a lovely sea front property overlooking the pier. However in the end we managed to stumble on the perfect place almost by chance.
Located in “Brighton’s trendy North Laine” area, the Argus Lofts are one of the coolest re-developments in Brighton. A converted Grade II listed building, the lofts were once the printworks for the local newspaper. Redesigned by Conran & Partners in 2003, the lofts are now a collection of designer apartments and workspaces.
We are hoping to move into a space managed by the creative charity Lighthouse. Lighthouse are completely re-fitting the area so it’s currently a bit of a building site. However assuming all the legal stuff goes ahead, we should be able to move in sometime next month.
Here are a few pics we took the other day to give you a feel for the space.
Being a creative charity, Lighthouse have gone to great pains to make the offices a pleasant place to be. This includes designer touches such as a reception that doubles as a showcase gallery, and a glass bridge over the downstairs atrium. It also includes things like a secure indoor bike storage area and regular recycling collections. Being a training charity, it also means that we’ll have access to a state of the art training facilities, so expect lots more public courses from Clearleft in the future.
Once everything is official, we’ll have to think about fitting the office out. The temptation would be to put all the desks around the outside of the walls, but this won’t maximise the space in the centre of the room. I’d prefer to have one or two “blocks” of desks so everybody can sit together in a more community oriented space. We also plan to have a small meeting area as well as a chill out area where we can get away from our desks and relax for a bit if we want to.
I’ve been looking around for office design inspiration and came up with post entitled 10 seeeeeriously cool workplaces. Joel Spolsky also has a nice article on the bionic office. However I’d love to hear your thoughts and recommendations on the subject. Do you know of any great articles or resources on setting up the perfect office? Maybe you’ve worked somewhere really nice and have some thoughts or recommendations of your own.
Over to you.
3 Things You Wish Clients Knew About the Web | June 27, 2006
What three things do you wish your clients knew about the web?
Creative pitches are toxic | June 13, 2006
In a recent survey of design agencies, the BDI calculated that unpaid creative pitches cost UK agencies an average of £38,000 per year. This may sound reasonable for a large agency with plenty of resources, especially if they are going after large projects. However over half of the design agencies in the UK employ less than five people, and £38,000 is a lot of money for a small agency.
I’ve long held the belief that creative pitches are toxic, and unpaid creative pitches doubly so. This view is upheld by a number of professional design associations that actively ban their members from engaging in unpaid creative. Creative pitches are bad for the client, bad for the designer and bad for the industry as a whole, and I’m going to explain why.
The concept of creative pitches came primarily from the print and advertising worlds. To gain a competitive edge, design agencies would offer to show clients sample ideas, hoping to wow them with their creative skills. This initial outlay made lots of sense when dealing with above the line advertising campaigns that could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to make, and the initial outlay was small by comparison. This also made sense when commissioning graphic art such as illustration, as it was possible to interpret the client’s wishes from an initial meeting or creative brief.
Sadly, as this process became more and more common, it began to be seen as an accepted part of commissioning creative work. Rather than helping some design agencies distinguish themselves from the competition, pitches began to devolve into beauty competitions. And it wasn’t confined to above the line campaigns either. As the process started to filter down, even the smallest piece of design work was subject to the creative pitch.
I said at the start that creative pitches were bad for the client, and here is why. Design is much more than just creating beautiful works of graphic art; it’s about solving problems in a creative space. However by relegating design to a mere beauty contest, designs will usually be decided on subjective rather than objective terms. People will often choose a design based on their own personal–and sometimes irrational–preferences, rather than the views of the user or the business goals of the organisation. How many times have agencies seen otherwise great designs rejected because the MD doesn’t like that particular shade of green? Or worse still, how many designs have been chosen because they look “wizzy� and “cutting edge� when they are completely inappropriate for the task at hand?
Creative pitches are intended to give clients an understanding of the creative capacity of an agency, yet this is not a fair or balanced comparison. When you hire a creative agency, they will spend time learning about you, your industry and your business. This allows them to understand the problems at hand and come up with creative solutions. In a pitch situation there is never sufficient time for discovery, so any design suggestions will be ill informed at best.
Good design takes time, understanding and plenty of client feedback. Designs will go through numerous iterations before they are complete, often looking nothing like the initial suggestions. By comparison, designs created for a pitch are usually done in a hurry, by whoever is available at the time. There is little room for iteration and the initial submission is usually the one that will be judged.
If clients insist on a creative pitch, the only way to help ensure consistency is to pay the designers for their time and design skills, otherwise the larger agencies with bigger resources will always have more time to spend on a pitch than smaller, busier agencies. Sadly, paid pitches are a relative anomaly, and the reasons are clear. Clients see pitching as a way of saving money and cutting corners. Why pay one agency to come up with a single design when you can get five agencies to create designs for free and choose your favourite? Similarly, why spend time researching agencies and examining their portfolio, when you can get them to do most of the work for you?
This logic seems to make sense on the surface, but is fatally flawed, as any design agency that engages in creative pitches will simply pad their day rate to account for the time lost on unsuccessful pitches. Sadly, in an attempt to save money, clients are costing the industry hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. That is money coming out of your pocket.
Because creative pitches are usually unpaid, clients are able to request pitches with a minimal personal outlay. This means pitches often happen far too early in the process, before a project has been properly scoped out or checked for feasibility. As such, the BDI survey found out that over 25% of projects are not awarded after a creative pitch. This is big news so I’m going to repeat it again. Over a quarter of creative pitches are never awarded! If creative pitches are such a useful tool for deciding a design partner, why do they so frequently fail? Is it because the designs presented aren’t up to scratch, or is it because the whole process of creative pitches are fatally flawed, providing too many, partially complete designs for the inexperienced client to choose from?
Even if the project is awarded, there is no guarantee that the playing field will be level. Quite often companies will put projects to tender when they have already made a decision, and are simply showing due process. I have experienced both sides of this equation, having pitched for projects where we knew we’d get the work, as well as projects where the incumbent was always going to win.
I have always believed that creative pitches provide poor value for the client, and makes choosing a design partner harder rather than easier. I also believe unpaid creative pitches are bad for the designers involved and damaging to the industry as a whole. Apart from the large amount of money lost per year, unpaid pitches relegate design to a commodity, and a free commodity at that. People value things they pay for, while they place little stock in things that are free. This is why so many creative pitches go un-awarded.
To ensure that clients continue to see the value of professional design, as an industry we must stand our ground and charge for our services. If a client comes to you with a creative pitch, explain the pitfalls surrounding the process and why you don’t engage in unpaid creative If they are a reasonable client they will understand your reasoning and respect you all the more. If the client insists, politely decline and spend the time more profitably elsewhere.
I was discussing the issue of creative pitches with some colleagues a few weeks ago, and fully expected them to agree with my position. However to my surprise, these industry experts not only accepted creative pitching as a daily part of their life as a designer, they thought it was a good thing. In all honestly I was quite taken aback by this attitude, so thought it was worth putting my thoughts online.
So I ask you fellow designers, what is your view on creative pitches? Are they an inevitable–and some may say necessary–part of the design process, or a costly, archaic and counter-productive by-product of a bygone era?
Over to you.
Consultant Rant | April 13, 2006
One thing that annoys me about this industry is the flagrant misuse of the term “Consultant”. A consultant is generally somebody who provides professional advice to a client for a fee. So as an accessibility and user experience consultancy, clients will come to us for our advice on improving the accessibility and user experience of their products, and we’ll respond with some form of report or documentation, often backed up with a formal presentation.
One of the benefits of hiring a consultant is that their advice is independent of the internal and external political factors surrounding a project, so is generally seen as more reliable. It’s sad, but clients will often take more notice of an external consultant than their own internal team, who may have been recommending exactly the same solutions for some time. In fact, one of the benefits of employing an independent consultant to back up what your in-house team has been saying all along.
We are often brought in at the start of a project to give companies an overview of the problems and issues they face. We can also be bought in during a project to give unbiased feedback on the performance of other agencies. More often than not we start by providing consultancy services and then get asked to implement our recommendations. The key defining factor is the provision of professional advice, hence the use of the term consultancy.
Unfortunately I see a lot of companies using the term consultancy because it sounds impressive, rather than because they offer a true consultation service. This is even more true of the freelance market where the term “consultant” has simply come to mean “short-term” or “temporary” contract work. It may sound cooler than freelance web designer, but unless you’re offering professional advice rather than design and implementation, I’d avoid calling yourself a “Web Design Consultant”.
It is sort of like calling yourself “President and CEO” of a one man company. It may sound good on paper, but looks less impressive to clients when they find out that you’re also the secretary and office cleaner.
10 Bad Project Warning Signs | May 31, 2005
One of the great things about being a freelance web designer is the ability to turn down projects. I’ve come across a few projects recently that sounded interesting but made me feel nervous. It wasn’t any one specific thing; rather a series of small little things that set my internal alarm bells ringing. As such I’ve written up a list of bad project warning signs. Individually none of these signs should be deal breakers. However put a few of them together and it may be worth thinking twice about taking on that project.
- The project needs to be done in an incredibly short space of time, due to a fixed deadline. In these situations the potential client has often known about the deadline for a while. However it’s taken them longer to plan the project than initially anticipated so they expect the developer to make up the time.
- The potential client says that they have no idea about budget. This could indicate they haven’t done their home work and aren’t very serious about the project.
- The potential client says they have a budget but won’t tell you what it is. This is often an indication that the client doesn’t trust you and feels that if they let you know their budget, you’ll simply charge them more for the same solution.
- The client says they want the site to be as cheap as possible, or they have an extremely low budget. This usually means the client doesn’t value their web presence much, preferring cheaper over better. In this situation potential clients are often spending their own money, can be extremely demanding and expect more for less.
- The client expects much more from the project than their budget will allow. In these situations it can be difficult to manage the client’s expectations.
- You are expected to come up with design ideas for the pitch. This is often problematic as you won’t know enough about the project at such an early stage. These type of pitches can turn into a beauty contest where participants are solely judged on the visuals they create rather than their ability and track record. There is a strong risk that elements of your design will be used even if you don’t win the pitch.
- The potential client won’t tell you how many agencies they have contacted about this project. This could indicate that they have emailed a large number of agencies and are shopping for the lowest quote.
- You will be pitching against a large number of other agencies. This often means the client hasn’t done their homework researching potential suppliers. If the pitch involves lots of preparation this puts a financial burden on the agency, while limiting the chance of success.
- There is no central point of contact. Projects for large companies often involve many stakeholders. If there is nobody managing the project at the client’s end you’ll having to do it for them. This vastly complicates the project and increases your overheads. Being a supplier you’ll have no power in the organisation, making your task extremely difficult. You also run the risk of getting sucked into company politics.
- The potential client hasn’t provided you with a request for proposal and doesn’t have the time to fill in your design questionnaire fully. If the client isn’t willing to put the required time into the project it could indicate they aren’t going to take the project seriously. It could also indicate that they have contacted lots of agencies and just don’t have the time or are simply window shopping.
What are your bad project warning signs? Are there any projects you’ve taken on and wished you hadn’t? Conversely, were there any projects you were nervous about taking on only to find those concerns were unfounded?
Top Tips For Freelancers | May 19, 2005
If you’re a regular reader of this site you’ll probably know that I left full time work at the end of March to begin a new career as a freelance web consultant. If you’re currently a freelancer or running your own small business, I’d love to hear your top tips.These could be anything from productivity tips, to accountancy tips – tips about finding work to tips about keeping organised and focused. Is there a great bit of software you use or a process that you swear by. Is there something you know now that you wished you’d know when you started? I’m all ears.
