Learn To Communicate Your Ideas With Web Designers!

Chad Faith
Chad Faith

Director of Content

Web Tools Toolbox Online Website Developer Kit

Going for professional web design services is by far the best strategy for any business looking to establish themselves well online. Unless your company happens to be a web design company too, there’s no way that you’re going to be able to create the same kind of professional sheen that a dedicated web design team with years of experience will, and ultimately this will greatly enhance your reputation online and the effectiveness of your site. The return on investment for a well-designed website is huge.

The only problem with this though, is that it means trusting someone else to handle your designs for you. If you have a very clear vision of what you want then this can be daunting, so it’s very important that you are able to communicate that vision effectively to ensure the end product is what you wanted. Here are some tips to help you do that.

Use Other Designs for Reference

One thing that helps a great deal in communicating what you want to a designer, is using some external reference point. This will likely mean showing them other websites that you like the looks of and telling them precisely what it is about those sites that you like. Pinterest is a great place to look for these images.

At the same time though, not all your inspiration will necessarily have to come from other websites. If you use your imagination, then actually you can find inspiration even in interior design, magazine layouts and more.

Make Sketches

Likewise, you can also draw what you want for web designers using a tool like Paint or PhotoShop. This is a handy way to communicate ideas like menu layouts and image placements. Likewise, you can also annotate web pages you like the looks of or even suggestions they’ve sent through by using ‘Print Screen’ and then writing in MSPaint. On the other hand, if you’re a bit more tech savvy then you can try using a number of mockup tools to do the job.

Be Specific and Precise

One important tip when communicating with designers is to be as precise and specific as possible. In other words, if you have a specific shade of green you want to use then tell them. Likewise, if you want your image margins to be a particular size… let them know.

Most web designers will presume that you don’t have such specific requests in these areas, so if you don’t communicate your needs upfront, they will go ahead and create the site as they see fit. If you have to keep asking them to go back and change small details, you will only waste everyone’s time and eventually frustrate your designers.

Trust the Designer

Better yet though, is to trust your designers and what they suggest. If they advise something that doesn’t sound quite right to you, then just remember that they have years of experience and often several qualifications in the field of design and they may well know something you don’t. Likewise, we can often be ‘too close’ to our own business to objectively suggest the best design. Let your web designer do what you pay them to do and the outcome will usually be better!