How to Use Your Client‘s Design Ideas – and Why This is Important
As developers and designers, it can be tempting to take full creative control over projects and ignore the input of our clients. After all, we‘re the experts, right? While you may have the technical skills and design experience, successful projects are a collaboration between you and the client. Incorporating your client‘s ideas is essential for creating an end product they will be satisfied with.
The Importance of a Collaborative Design Process
Design should be a partnership between the designer and client from start to finish. Your role is not just to build what they ask for, but to understand their vision and guide them toward the best solution. A collaborative process results in:
- Greater investment from the client in the project
- Clearer communication and alignment on the end goal
- Faster approval cycles and fewer revisions
- An end product the client is excited about
Most importantly, your client will feel a sense of ownership over the design. They won‘t see it as just your creation, but something they played a key role in shaping. This makes it much more likely they will be happy with the result and recommend your services to others.
The numbers back this up. According to a study by the Design Management Institute, design-driven companies outperform the S&P 500 by 219% over a 10-year period. These are companies that prioritize design and involve stakeholders in the process, rather than treating it as a siloed function.
| Company | 10-Year Return |
|---|---|
| Apple | 1,196% |
| Coca-Cola | 138% |
| IBM | 183% |
| Nike | 1,060% |
| S&P 500 | 63% |
Source: Design Management Institute, "The Value of Design"
Strategies for Drawing Out Client Ideas
Getting clients to share their ideas can sometimes feel like pulling teeth. They may feel shy about their creativity, worried their suggestions will be shot down, or simply not know how to articulate what they want. As the design expert, it‘s your job to proactively elicit their input and make them feel comfortable collaborating.
1. Conduct user research together
Involving your client in user research is a great way to get their insights while also building empathy for the end user. Invite them to join in customer interviews, usability testing sessions, or focus groups. Analyzing the findings side-by-side will help the client feel invested in the process and more open to sharing their own ideas.
2. Create user personas and journey maps
Personas and journey maps are powerful tools for aligning stakeholders around user needs and pain points. Make the creation of these artifacts a collaborative exercise with your client. Work together to define key user types, sketch out their typical workflows, and identify opportunities for improvement.
3. Use design thinking exercises
Design thinking methodologies are all about drawing out insights and ideas from diverse perspectives. Facilitate structured exercises like empathy mapping, storyboarding, and brainstorming with your clients to get them actively involved in ideation. Seeing their rough concepts come to life will give them the confidence to keep contributing.
4. Set expectations and boundaries
While you want to encourage client participation, it‘s also important to set some guidelines around the feedback process. Make sure to:
- Clearly define roles and responsibilities up front. Outline which aspects of the design you own vs. where you need client input.
- Set a schedule for check-ins and reviews. Put feedback milestones on the calendar so the client knows when their input will be needed.
- Establish criteria for evaluating ideas. Create a rubric or checklist to assess suggestions against user needs, technical feasibility, business goals, etc.
Having these boundaries in place will make for a more focused and productive collaboration, while still giving the client ample opportunity to share their perspective.
Overcoming Common Challenges
Incorporating client ideas into the design process is not always smooth sailing. Here are some challenges you may encounter and how to address them:
1. Preventing scope creep
Enthusiastic clients may get carried away with suggestions that expand the scope of the project beyond what was originally agreed upon. To prevent this:
- Refer back to the project brief and requirements document to keep things on track
- Gently remind the client of the timeline and budget constraints
- If a new idea has merit, discuss trading it off for a lower priority feature or creating a separate phase of work
2. Balancing conflicting stakeholder opinions
On larger projects, you may be dealing with multiple stakeholders who have differing or even conflicting ideas about the design. Some tips for navigating this:
- Get all the stakeholders in the same room (or video call) to align on goals and priorities
- Visually map out each stakeholder‘s suggestions to identify overlap and outliers
- Play the role of mediator and help the group come to consensus
- Escalate to the ultimate decision maker if needed to move forward
3. Knowing when to push back
There will be times when you need to respectfully disagree with a client‘s idea if it goes against design best practices or detracts from the user experience. Remember to:
- Ask questions to fully understand their perspective before reacting
- Explain your rationale in terms of user impact, not just opinion
- Offer alternative solutions that balance their needs with good design
- Pick your battles – some things may not be worth falling on your sword over
By proactively addressing these common pitfalls, you can keep the collaboration with your client positive and productive.
Collaboration Leads to Better Outcomes
Need more convincing that involving your client in the design process is worthwhile? Let‘s look at some real-world examples of how collaboration has driven success for major brands.
Airbnb
When Airbnb redesigned their mobile app in 2016, they didn‘t just rely on their in-house designers. They involved hosts and guests in the process, conducting extensive user research to understand their needs and pain points. This led to innovative features like the actionable messaging system for hosts and split stays for guests. As a result, bookings increased and Airbnb saw a 13% increase in Android app ratings and an 11% increase in iOS app ratings.
Slack
Slack is known for their user-centric design process, which involves constantly gathering feedback from customers and rapidly iterating. They have a dedicated user research team that conducts interviews, surveys, and usability tests with customers on a weekly basis. This has led to popular features like threaded messages, emoji reactions, and the ability to easily toggle between channels and direct messages. Slack‘s valuation has soared to over $20 billion, in large part due to their obsessive focus on customer collaboration.
GOV.UK
When the UK government redesigned their website in 2012, they didn‘t just hire an outside agency and wait for the big reveal. They assembled a multidisciplinary team of designers, developers, content creators, and policy experts to collaborate on the new site. They conducted extensive user research with citizens to understand their needs and involved stakeholders from across government in the design process. The result was a streamlined, user-friendly site that has won numerous design awards and vastly improved citizen satisfaction with government digital services.
These examples illustrate that when you bring clients and stakeholders into the design process, magic can happen. The end product is more likely to meet user needs, achieve business goals, and drive measurable results.
The Future is Collaborative
As the field of UX design continues to evolve, one thing is clear: collaboration is key. Gone are the days of designers retreating to their creative caves and emerging with a perfect solution. The most successful design teams are those that involve stakeholders early and often, seeking out diverse perspectives to shape the final product.
This means as a designer, one of your most valuable skills is facilitation. You need to be able to draw out ideas, mediate discussions, and guide your clients toward the best possible solutions. Your role is part project manager, part therapist, part teacher, and part advocate for the end user.
It may require a shift in mindset for those used to working in isolation, but the payoff is worth it. By involving your clients in the design process, you‘ll build stronger relationships, create better products, and ultimately drive more success for your business.
So the next time a client comes to you with an idea, don‘t just humor them and then go off and do your own thing. Embrace the opportunity to collaborate. Ask questions, explore possibilities, and find ways to incorporate their input while elevating the design. Who knows – you may just end up creating something extraordinary together.
Conclusion
In this article, we‘ve explored why using your client‘s design ideas is so critical for project success. From building buy-in and ownership to creating more user-centric solutions, the benefits of collaboration are clear. We‘ve covered specific strategies for eliciting client ideas, overcoming common challenges, and seen real-world examples of the impact a collaborative approach can have.
If you take away one thing from this article, let it be this: your client is not an obstacle to good design, they are an essential partner in the process. By bringing them along on the journey and valuing their input, you‘ll not only create better products but also build lasting relationships.
So go forth and collaborate! Your clients (and their users) will thank you.