Whenever we meet with clients, a few things are always a safe bet. It should look clean and fresh, probably a bit like Apple. It should also be intuitive, also a bit like Apple. Come to think of it, most people just want to be Apple. As the person making your site though, I can report that one factor is often overlooked: speed. We’ll look deeper into why speed matters so much, but the TL;DR version is that you want speed because Google says so.

Google wants speed because it wants your users happy

When it comes to making Google happy, it’s a two-sided coin. On one side, their algorithm is complicated and never 100% known, but on the other, it can mostly be broken down to one simple rule: “make the user happy.”

For that reason, the things that Google cares about are that mobile users are having a good experience, colour-blind users are having a good experience, and people who need quick answers are having a good experience. And what creates a great experience that few will ever complain about? Speed.

As everyone pivoted to spending more time on mobile internet, connection speeds dropped, as did happiness with bloated (yet often beautiful) websites. Around 2010, Google declared that they were going to war with slow websites. If you didn’t adapt, the algorithm would leave you behind.

By 2020, Google had introduced Core Web Vitals, a set of metrics focusing on key aspects of user experience: loading (Largest Contentful Paint), interactivity (First Input Delay), and visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift). These metrics are now crucial indicators of a site's performance and significantly influence its ranking on Google's search engine results pages. Ensuring your website meets these standards not only boosts your ranking but also enhances overall user satisfaction.

People do not have the time

While Google ranking is top of mind for most people, the simple act of having a page load too slowly is enough to lose customers even after you’ve managed to get their eyes.

Statistics on when people leave a website that’s moving too slowly tend to strike fear into the hearts of business and web people alike. Even though we behave exactly the same as everybody else, seeing the raw numbers can be jarring. According to research by Google, as page load time goes from one second to ten seconds, the probability of a mobile site visitor leaving increases by 123%. Moreover, studies show that 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than three seconds to load.

Beyond simple matters of frustration, a fast-loading speed is also psychologically pleasing to people. It means you and your business are a finely tuned machine that knows what’s up. Don’t believe me? Pay attention to that knot in your stomach the next time you go to purchase something from a site and it takes three seconds to load your cart, causing you to break out into a flop sweat.

So where do we begin with speed?

Images

There are many ways to have a fast site, or speed up your existing one. The main culprit on most of the slow sites we encounter is images. Not that images are a problem, but it’s when people upload images to their sites without adjusting them first.

As internet speeds have gotten better and phones have become more powerful, your average image these days is monstrously large compared to the overall recommended size of a single web page. To give you an idea, a standard photo taken on a two-year-old iPhone is about 2.5 MB, while the recommended size of an entire page according to Google is 500 KB. If we added a single image from an iPhone to a webpage without adjusting it first, it would be—on its own—five times bigger than the recommended size for the entire page.

Your friendly neighbourhood web professional can help with tools that will automatically shrink your images on upload if you’d like, or you can use tools such as TinyPNG or Photoshop to adjust them before they hit your site.

Caching

Caching is like the barista that knows your order and has it ready for you before you even walk through the door. It keeps a lot of your site in memory and serves it up immediately to users. Again, this is a tool your web person can help with, or you can find handy plugins online to help you.

One word of caution though, sometimes caching works a little too well. If you ever find yourself scratching your head over changes that aren’t showing, 75% of the time it’s caching every time.

Hosting

The siren call of cheap hosting is a strong one. I’ve heard it myself, and as somebody who’s made the mistake too many times to admit, I recommend you stay strong against its charms. While the difference between a cheap host and a pricey host can be a few hundred dollars a year, cheap hosting has a way of making you pay in other ways (sanity, life meaning, and ability to sleep among them).

A good (read: pricey) host will focus on things like speed and stability, which, if you’re doing anything remotely serious, will matter above all else. I know. I hate paying them too. It’s a bad feeling you just have to move on from.

Good Code

It wouldn’t be a blog post without some base-level pandering, would it? As the world of building websites changes to a more user-friendly landscape, we have themes that allow people to make more and more complicated layouts. While this is outstanding, many of the themes can end up being a giant Swiss Army knife of code. This versatility, unfortunately, can come at the cost of size and speed.

That’s not to say you can’t benefit from this brave new world, it’s just that it needs to be set up properly with the strong tools and practices.

How do I know if my site is slow?

A common tool used in the industry is a website known as GTMetrix. It will do a base-level scan of a page on your site and report back with a score alongside a laundry list of potential fixes. As you work your way through the list, you can run new scans to see the score climb ever higher.

Conclusion

While the importance of speed can at times be a frustrating bummer to those of us making the sites, the end goal is noble: we want our users to have a good time on our sites. With a touch of forethought and a little help, building a site that meets speed standards is not an out-of-reach goal for anybody.

Get your images small, use a great host that will help with caching, reach out for help when needed, and you’ll be all set. And of course, if you find yourself lost and without help, we’re always a click away.

The post The Importance of Web Speed appeared first on Build Studio.

Recently I had the misfortune of being the un-proud owner of a broken dishwasher. This sort of thing typically sets off a chain of unhelpful thoughts and behaviours as the stress of a broken appliance sets up shop directly in the centre of my mind. So I needed an appliance repair website, and I needed one quickly.

I Googled around to find a good repair option. Unfortunately, most sites were lacking–an unsurprising fact given that I’m intimately aware how difficult it can be to make a good one.

One site however stuck out as very well done, and I’ve decided to poach my favourite bits for you so that you can improve your site. This site is specific to appliance repair, but the principles work across most service websites.

Primary focus on the most important thing

When it comes to appliance repair websites, the essential feature to get right is contact info. Of all the factors to get right, this one is a low bar that most clear. Whether they do it well is something we’ll get to in a moment, but on a basic level, most sites did an admirable job of giving me a way to contact them.

Regarding posting contact info, what did the best site do that the others did not? They nailed the following things:

Direct the Eyes by Creating a hierarchy

When we create any webpage, we get to decide where the user’s eyes go. We do this by establishing a visual hierarchy. The most critical thing sticks out like a sore thumb by design, and everything else gets a bit more subtle.

What's most important factor on your site will vary, but contact info is king in this case. It would easily be lost in the shuffle if it was alongside ten paragraphs of over-explained mission statements, random text bolding, and empty promises.

The best site kept the number of words to a minimum. For example, the entire homepage only had four full paragraphs on it. What remains is a page that has just enough information to be helpful but not so wordy that it drowned out the contact info.

Using Colour to Draw attention

They also utilized colour well. The site had an undeniable blue and green colour scheme, but the contact information sat in a bright orange box. Sometimes visual designers will break consistency on purpose to ensure that your eye detects something is unique, and it travels directly to that area.

For example, if I wanted to provide users with three pricing options, but I wanted attention drawn to one option more than the others, I could colour it differently. For example:

What makes this trick work is by using it modestly. But unfortunately, too many companies get hung up on announcing everything as incredibly important, creating a visual mess that gives the opposite impression.

Various Forms of Contact

If you work with enough web users over time, you become aware of one significant fact: people are complicated. What makes total sense for one group will make zero for another. As such, opinions on how to contact a company are all over the map. Some want a phone number because they need to talk to a person, and some want an email form so they don’t have to leave the website. In contrast, others want an email address to take care of business in their email client.

The solution is to go scorched earth and offer all primary forms of communication. Have a link to your contact form, an email address, a phone number, and, if the situation is available, a chat widget. Keep in mind mileage might vary on this one. Depending on your unique business and visitors, it might make sense for you to have all forms of contact or fewer. You’ll have to find what works best for you.

Find a theme and stick to it

A website is a piece of marketing; like any ad you create, it needs to evoke a feeling. What feeling do you want your website to produce in a customer? Some sites I visited went with displaying their technical expertise or affordability. The one I ultimately landed on doubled down hard on reliability. That’s not to say yours has to also, but whatever you choose, make it your theme.

The confident message was incredibly reassuring for a person like me who gets a little frantic when things break. Key to this point is that the tone existed across the entire site. The content was written reassuringly, the colours were emotionally appropriate, and the imagery was of happy, stress-free people enjoying their appliance that now works (and cleverly, allowing me to highlight that I could be one of them shortly).

That last one is important. Remember, much like any ad, you want to evoke the end feeling your business will give people. A car ad might want to spotlight a feeling of freedom, while a restaurant might lean hard into social connection or satisfaction. In this case, it’s relief. Shiny happy people playing with their kids or relaxing, and not elbow-deep in manuals and frustration.

Don’t just sell, provide value

Most companies are very protective of their knowledge, which makes sense–they sell it after all. But do you want to be like most companies, or do you want to stand out? The truth is (especially in appliance repair) the information you might want to hold back is probably already readily available, especially in appliance repair. For example, people aren’t contacting you to troubleshoot their oven. If that's what they were after, they can already do that using one of the thousands of available youtube videos or blog posts. Instead, people contact you because they don’t want to do that.

What I loved about the site I found was that each of its service pages (split up by appliance) had a reasonably sized Frequently Asked Questions section. It functioned for a few reasons:

• It allowed them to answer simple questions that they’re highly likely to get but never amount to a sale, so they save themselves some time.
• It allowed them to list some of the problems they can solve and how much it’s likely to cost, establishing themselves as experts and managing expectations.
• It built trust with the user because some value was offered up, seemingly as a gesture of goodwill.

By giving a bit of information away, they came across as competent and trustworthy– priceless qualities for a service business to hold.

Booking

The site I ultimately chose had a wonderfully helpful tool on their site that let me book using a calendar that allowed me to see right away when I could expect this problem to be solved. Without this, it's difficult to know how long I may have to wait for a visit.

I selected a day and a time, which was passed on to their office. This form works great for all involved because the person who manages the booking can call me and confirm. They didn’t have to waste time going over details because I’d already included them when I booked.

In keeping with the theme we touched on in the contact section, remember that some people will want to talk to a person. In contrast, others would walk across hot coals to avoid such an experience. By offering an online booking option, the net is wide, and you can catch customers of either type.

To get a better idea of what’s out there in terms of booking options for your WordPress site, here are some ideas.

Testimonials

Testimonials are another low-hanging fruit that many other sites did manage to utilize, but only sometimes well. Yes, you should be featuring happy clients' stories, but why stop there? You can also link off to your Google listing, which has not only ratings by customers but (if you’re active there) also some public communication between you and the clients.

In addition to providing the testimonials, the site I landed on also made offering a testimonial dead easy. They provided a form to send them a story, links, and instructions on giving a review elsewhere.

Some essential tips on providing testimonials on your site are:

• Keep them legitimate. Fake reviews always feel off and are simple to spot
• Don’t be shy to ask for specifics. Remind your clients to mention the problem, how it was handled, and the end result in their review.
• Use a plugin or widget that refreshes your testimonials automatically so the user sees a different review on each page load
• consider where your testimonial should go on your site. Aside from a dedicated page, a popular spot is in the footer, so it’s not directly in anybody’s face but remains present across your entire site.

It doesn’t stop at the site

Whatever experience you set out to have your website provide for a customer, make sure that your on-site visits embody the same qualities. When my repair appointment ultimately did happen, the guy who showed up was very much like the site itself: clear, courteous, overly helpful, and motivated to help me get back to life.

He wore shoe coverings to protect my floors, explained with extreme clarity what was going on despite knowing full well I was out of my element, offered his card with his direct line should anything go wrong once he left, and payment was made seamlessly from his phone.

In Conclusion

Your website is similar to any other piece of marketing. It needs to send a clear message, make your potential customers feel something, and give them the means to solve their problems.

The site I ultimately landed on kept the visual clutter to a minimum, made it easy to contact them, stuck to a singular message, provided great value, established themselves as experts, offered up some proof of their work, and when the time came to show themselves, they walked the walk.

Follow these basic rules and your website can do much the same.

If you need help with your website, don’t hesitate to reach out to us for a chat, and we’ll see what we can do.

The post What Makes a Good Appliance Repair Website? appeared first on Build Studio.

If somebody offered you a car for $500, you’d be quite right to question whether what you’re getting is actually a bargain. It might have 4 wheels, some doors and it may move forwards and backwards, but you’d still have a couple questions. The raw materials alone probably cost more, so something is clearly missing. A cheap website isn't much different.

We find ourselves in a time when making websites has never been easier. At our disposal are countless free services or low-cost templates, and if either of those fail there’s that nice lady in your office who has a son who’ll whip up a site for little more than positive reinforcement.

So why go with a professional? I’ve been told more than once that “anybody can make a website”, so why go with a more expensive choice?

You’re Paying For My Mistakes

More accurately, you’re paying for the mistakes I made yesterday. Making mistakes is an absolutely critical step in becoming good at anything, and if you ask professionals they'll admit to making some unspeakable errors. If you hire somebody without experience, guess whose site they're going to make theirs on?

I have a friend that will help with any home renovation project. Part of it is that he’s a genuinely good person, but the other part is something he’ll repeat often: “we’re going to make a lot of mistakes today, and I’d rather make them in your home so I don’t have to make them in mine down the road”. That's a frighteningly honest thing to hear from a man holding a sledgehammer, but you have to admire how smart it is. I don't blame you for asking why I'd let that man into my house. At the same time though, you can't blame me for asking why you'd let somebody do the same to your business.

How a Cheap Site is Built

Cheap sites are built by cutting corners. Some times the corner-cutting is intentional to keep costs low, and other times the developer quoted way too low and the corner-cutting comes when they're angry and exhausted.

The easiest way to keep cost low is to have a set process that can churn out a product in very little time. That's fantastic when the goal is getting a site quickly, but that's ignoring the fact that launch speed is just one factor of many in a successful website.

Were you properly trained in how to use it? Is it easy to update what you need to update? Was it even designed and built with you in mind? Was there adequate user testing performed before launch to ensure users are able find what they’re looking for? What happens to the site after launch? I’ve made cheap websites in my day (we all have), and unfortunately the result is generally the same. The bargain price doesn't include post-launch support or training, it wasn’t designed with you in mind because it’s easier to make things fast than make them easy to use, and if suddenly you realize something is broken on mobile you’re totally on your own. Now you're stuck in an unenviable position. Instead of investing money into your site, you're now investing time and sanity (and likely more money).

It Doesn't Take Much to Turn People Away

Everybody has given up on a website in frustration. Maybe the information is difficult to find or the products are difficult to purchase. The truth is it doesn’t take much to turn people away. If a user becomes frustrated, it's a sign that an important aspect of your site wasn't given the attention it deserves.

I’ve always maintained you should treat your website the way you treat your storefront. How it looks, feels, and operates reflects directly on you. It gives your first-time customers an idea of the kind of job you’re going to perform. Having a website that looks like it was given a half-effort will only convince people that you’re the type who thinks half-efforts are acceptable.

So Are Cheap Websites Always a Bad Idea?

Not at all! It's important to note that there is a time and place for them. If you have zero budget and the site isn't connected to a business venture, then a cheap website can be perfect. I've recommended them for friends who need travel blogs or wedding information sites in the past and the results have been beyond acceptable. Those types of sites were very personal or were for single occasions. They can have quirks or imperfections and it isn't going to be a disaster.

In The End...

Whether it costs time, effort, stress, or actual revenue, more often than not taking the road of least expense can end up costing far more than a site done well. There are few things more disheartening than meeting with a client who’s ready to pay for a proper site only after burning through several bargain sites.

If you’re on the market for a company to help you build a site, do your homework and be sure to contact clients that have worked with them in the past. Are they happy? How was the overall experience? Have they seen tangible results? Be sure to ask these questions before moving ahead to ensure success.

--

This post was originally written by Russ Fee of FS Creative in April 2016.

The post The Cost of Cheap appeared first on Build Studio.

If you’ve never been involved in the creation of a website before, there are some paths that can lead to delays or bloated budgets. We’ve identified what we feel are the biggest pitfalls and how to avoid them.

1. You’re Likely Underestimating How Long Content Will Take

In the majority of sites we make, the client wants to create the content. The most common reason for this is the client feels they are the only one capable of doing it. They often miss one very important point though: the person on the receiving end of this decision is likely already very busy with their job. Even if that individual is an excellent writer, it is a process that demands great time, attention, and respect. It’s important to note that a command of the written language is just one tool of many that are required to produce good web copy.

For many businesses asking an employee (or yourself) to carve out an extra hour each day for a week would be a huge request. Now consider the fact that depending on the site, content could take many, many times that. Once you factor in the reasonable chance of writers block, multiple revisions, exploratory emails, and maybe a spattering of procrastination, then perhaps you see why at times the act of writing content can throw a project off its timeline by months.

When we provide a timeline to a client, we can generally nail it down tightly. We’ve been making sites long enough that we’re able to narrow down how long a given task will take to the minute. Once something as important as content is removed from our to-do list however, we lose our ability to forecast almost completely.

Our advice? Don’t provide your own content. If you’re on a tight timeline, the single best thing you can do to keep things on track is to include copywriting in your budget and let us help you. Of course I’m the guy selling the website, so I won’t fault you for being skeptical. I will promise you this though: ask 10 people who make websites what their #1 reason for missing deadlines is, and you’ll get 1 answer.

2. If the Content Comes After the Design, Your Site Will Suffer

Most of the time when a company wants to get going on a site, they want to get going on it yesterday. We’ll ask for content to be done first, but in almost all cases we’re told that won’t be feasible and we’ll just have to design in tandem. There’s one very important hitch though that most don’t realize: the content you start off with in your head is rarely the same as the content that is produced. Be it time constraints or the inspiration that comes during the writing process, things have a way of changing.

In the past we’ve dedicated a large portion of the design budget to building an elaborate area with super cool functionality, only to find out 2 weeks before launch that the content didn’t come together and that section won’t be used anymore. That’s an opportunity where the client could have saved a boatload of money. What’s more is that if a new layout needs to be created for that content, there are now restraints on how that layout can be built, which could result in a less than ideal solution or added cost.

Our advice? Sit down with whomever is building your site and lay out a content plan. If they’re providing the content, facilitate a meeting with the copywriter as soon as possible. If you’re writing the content, look at the sitemap together and go over best practices and what will be required for each page (eg. “this page will require a tagline in the banner, 6 product images and 2 sentences for each product).

3. There are Important Principles of Design That May Run Contrary to Your Preferences

At the beginning of every project, we outline what the main goal should be (generating more money, more attention etc.). From that point forward every decision is made with that goal in mind.

Preferences come in all shapes and sizes. Some are harmless (I love green), while others can flatline a site goal (I love tons of crazy fonts). It’s important to know the difference, and it’s important to know that your web developer loves you and isn’t just a big meanie. Sometimes when we speak up against your preferences, it’s coming from a place of research and love (but mostly research).

Our advice? If your designer disagrees with something you want, ask why. They should be able to back up their opinion with a solid reason that relates back to the overall goal.

4. Getting on the First Page of Google is Likely Harder Than You Realize

If getting onto the first page of Google for a given search term was easy, absolutely everybody would be there – and that would be one hell of a first page. Google takes many factors into consideration when it ranks sites, and they aren’t like flipping switches. It looks at whether your content is good enough to be shared, if your site displays well on mobile, if the images are properly tagged for blind people, etc. You’ll note that by doing this, Google is rewarding sites for being useful to users. Google’s mission with rankings is to serve the best site to the user, so sometimes it’s a lot easier to focus on making the best site possible and letting the search results happen organically.

If that doesn’t sound appealing and you want to dive deeper into the world of Search Engine Optimization, it’s important to start by recognizing one key point: there is no silver bullet, and even the plain old bullets you’ll have to use probably won’t be easy or cheap. As mentioned above, SEO isn’t a switch you flip, it’s an ongoing process that can require months of attention, testing, and tweaking to see a result. Remember some companies take their SEO so seriously that they spend as much as they did on their entire website every few months.

Our advice? Go into the project with some realistic expectations. Realize that to go beyond SEO basics could involve a financial and time investment that you may not have.

5. The Contract is Far More Useful Than Boring

Many people treat the project contract like a user licence agreement on a computer. They flip through it at increasing speed until they get to the part that tells them it’s over. The contract is actually a pretty spectacular document that should be referenced by both parties throughout the process. It includes timelines and deliverables for everybody, and it’s an excellent way to keep things on track. While we always provide a weekly summary of our projects, it’s always good to have a north star.

Our advice? Set up a time when the contract comes in to go through the contract together. That way if you require any clarification or notice an omission you can ask as you go.

Wrap-Up

The best advice we can offer is to spend a solid block of time with whomever is building your site and become acquainted with their process. Ask them what their pitfalls are, and how best to avoid them. While you may not be able to accommodate everything, you should be able to find a middle-ground that will ensure your project releases on time and on budget.

The post 5 Things to Know Before Starting a Web Project appeared first on Build Studio.

Last month, we talked a little bit about some basic questions to ask yourself and prospective candidates when you're hiring a web designer. Now you've got yourself a designer, you're all (hopefully) excited about collaborating on an excellent project. How do you interact effectively to keep stress to a minimum and ensure the chances for success?

Define your goals.

Before you kick things off - and ideally, this was a topic of discussion during your hiring process - you need to take some time to formulate a strong goal for your website, and communicate that to your designer. In my experience, the thing that most often weakens an end product is a lack of clearly defined goals from the beginning. This is your mantra for the duration of the project and beyond. It can be simple: "I want visitors to sign up for my mailing list." "I want them to see that we have a new product." "I want to push our online store and start funneling sales to that." Good. These are all solid goals that begin to give your website focus and your designer a starting point.

Directly tied to this goal is a clear definition of success. That should be based on an objective metric. You know you want visitors to sign up for your mailing list, but how many new signups would mean success? (Keep it honest and realistic - if you had 5 visitors a day before the project, it's probably not realistic to expect that your new site will bring in 50,000 visitors a day.) This is vital. If you're not directly tying your website to a goal (that is, if you're just getting a website because you want a website) you're setting yourself up to fail.

Your feedback is key.

You'll get to a point (ideally multiple points) when your designer will have taken your discussions together and distilled them down into a design, or some stage of a design. As you consider your feedback, keep those goals you've defined above in mind. Those goals enable you to judge the success of the project and each piece of it based on some fairly objective standards.

Feedback is a tricky thing, whether you’re in a design project or anywhere else. Use your feedback as an opportunity to have a conversation with your designer about his/her decisions. That is, don’t be afraid to ask questions such as, “why did you pick this color?” or “what led you to place Section A above Section B?” If you can, do your best to separate your personal tastes (such as “I don’t really care for yellow”) from the execution of the project’s goals. (Now, if your personal tastes happen to coincide with the project’s goals, that’s great - but don’t confuse the two. Remember that the ultimate goal is to attract visitors and conversions.)

Also, do your best to keep your feedback descriptive, as opposed to prescriptive. While you should always be honest and collaborative with your him/her, don’t forget that you hired him/her to solve design problems so that you don’t have to. You’ll get your best work from a designer when you present problems for him/her to solve (e.g. “I’m worried users will get lost on this page”) as opposed to deciding on solutions for him/her to execute (remember, that’s the work you’re paying for!).

Noted designer Mike Monteiro of Mule Design (in San Francisco) recently wrote a book called You're My Favorite Client. In this book, he discusses the entire process of working with a designer, from hiring to launch (and beyond). If you're looking at hiring a designer for almost any size project, I highly recommend picking it up.

--

This post was originally written by Tim Hamilton, a Chicago-based graphic designer in February 2015. 

The post Your Role in the Design Process appeared first on Build Studio.

This is the first part of a series on the designer-client relationship, specifically from the client’s point of view. When you’re picking a designer, there are a ton of choices out there. A quick Google search of “Calgary web designer” will give you literally hundreds - or more - choices of people and agencies to do business with, in our city alone. How do you decide which one can deliver what you need, and how can you effectively work with a designer to be sure that you’re satisfied with the final product?

Remember that this isn’t a throwaway decision. You’re hiring someone to design what could very likely be the first impression a potential client has of you, whether it’s a website, an identity system, or a set of posters. If you can, schedule a face-to-face meeting with a potential designer to get an idea of the following: how she works, what kind and quality of work she can do, and whether you feel you can have a successful working relationship with her. (We’ll look at these three points briefly.) A half-hour over a cup of coffee should do the trick.

How involved do you want to be?

First, you’ll want to know how a designer works, and whether that matches the kind of working relationship you want to have with him. Do you want to work with one person, who’s going to produce everything, or do you want to work with a project manager, who will be in turn directing a team to handle your work? (The latter will likely be more expensive.) Do you want a designer who’s going to take all of your content, disappear for a couple of weeks, and then re-emerge with a fully-formed, ready-to-launch website? On the other end of the spectrum, do you want someone who’s going to check in with you every day to get feedback on even the smallest items? (Just a quick caveat - the closeness of your working relationship will likely directly depend on your budget.)

Can they design what you need?

Don’t forget that some designers will be more suited to doing the type of work that you require than others. Don’t be afraid to ask for examples of previous work that would reflect his potential to do successful work for you. For example, if you’re the director of an arts festival, but your potential designer specializes in websites for lawyers and bankruptcy consultants, there may be a conflict between his particular skill set and your vision for the project. (In other words, don’t be surprised if his first draft looks like a website for a lawyer.) As much as possible, don’t let your project hinge on a guess or a hope, but more on a provable track record for producing the kind of work that you’ll require.

Do you like them?

Finally, you'll want to get an idea of whether you can have a successful working relationship with her. If your designer is worth her salt, she won’t be afraid to tell you when you’re wrong, and to explain why they produced the kind of work they did. Remember that this could be a fairly long-term relationship, depending on the project, and if you get a bad vibe from her on the first meeting, you may be off to a rocky start.

You might be saying to yourself, “Gosh, Tim, this sounds a lot like I’m conducting a job interview here.” Essentially, you’re right. You’re trying to find someone with whom you can exchange money for services, and you’re working together towards a common goal that will be beneficial for your organization.

--

This post was originally written by Tim Hamilton, a Chicago-based graphic designer in January 2015. 

The post Hiring a Designer appeared first on Build Studio.