I can only speak from my experience, but drawing from that, I tend to stop asking “what do you want”, and instead lead them with “what are your goals”. Asking “what do you want” is the equivalent of “how would you like your birthday cake?” – and 99% of the time a client will choose what THEY want, not what’s right for their site (or those who are eating the cake). Asking about goals is the same as saying “what do you want to achieve, and I will provide you with the services needed to achieve them.”

Once they list down a series of general goals, I talk them through each “ok, this one I need to bring up…” then give them short but clear examples of horror stories and success stories.

The client should be all ears by the time you finish.

“You can cut down on that time by asking the right questions, creating a working draft, then having a sit-down with the client.”

I agree with this! I just don’t know what the best way would be. Could you point me in the right direction?
Do you maybe have examples of the “right questions” and a “working draft” that actually works?

How do you make your clients trust you and make them feel that you only want what’s best for them? How do you make them feel that what you are saying is because you know what you are doing and not because you don’t want to do it their way?

Examples of the “right questions” and a “working draft” would really help point me in the right direction and I would really appreciate it if you/somebody could help with this.

I’ve been lucky enough to have clued up clients who buy into the ‘why’ of what I do (I find small/one man operations are better in this respect) – their criticism tends to have more validity. If you’ve been hired as as someone who can just get pages up on the internet, you’re more likely to get the silly stuff and hear ‘well, it’s all subjective anyway, why didn’t you put a flashing button here?’ style comments.

We used to do that: explain everything before the project got off the ground – often, the time spent having to explain every detail (and believe me, clients usually ask about every detail) is significant enough to be detrimental to both parties. If, for example, you spent 2 weeks discussing a project before starting anything, you still have to add the amount of time needed to actually build a working draft, and then the discussion and revisions after.

You can cut down on that time by asking the right questions, creating a working draft, then having a sit-down with the client. Instead of the client dictating the majority of the direction (which, more often than not, leads to more significant revisions down the line), you, the expert, have the ball in your park.

Once you have a working draft you can show, you can then explain to the client why it works that way. If you’ve had enough years in the industry, you would already know what works and what doesn’t for your client, and you should helping them by eliminating the guesswork.

Think of it this way: If you were a cosmetic surgeon, and a patient walks in and says “I would to reduce my thighs”, why would you ask them which of the 50 procedures they would like, and explain each and every one? You simply look at them and say “based on my observation, I can only recommend one or two procedures…” and then proceed to sketch/illustrate them, while providing detailed explanations.

There’s educating a client, and OVER-educating a client. A client will NOT remember all that you had explained to him 2 months down the line. Just as how a cosmetic surgery patient will not know everything that was done to him/her – the majority will simply say “I got it done at this great plastic surgeon…”

So why waste time (and money).

Certainly my judgment is different from yours. We have different level of tolerance. And I think this could possibly make a good topic for a post. :)

What we do want is “constructive criticism”, forming a dialogue between client and designer on how and where the site could be improved. If the client says “I don’t like the background”, what do you do? You’ve got precious little information on how to improve the situation. If the client says “I think the background is a bit too plain and boring, I was hoping for something jazzier” then you know where to go next.

Some aspects of web design are very subjective, and the design may be great but just not what the client was looking for.

Other aspects of the design are about good practice, and XLCowBoy, I understand exactly where you are coming from! Often the clients have very little understanding of good web design. But if you get into a constructive dialogue, you can explain why you have done things they way you have. This (a) shows them that you are professional and know what you are doing, (b) gives you the opportunity to politely talk them out of sabotaging their own site, while making them feel involved in the process, and (c) gives them a better understanding of the process and of good practice, so that they are less likely to ask for stupid things next time round.

(Why can’t we edit our comments?)

99% of the time, clients are absolutely clueless when it comes to design. We in the design/creative side see site designs, brand identities, print, product, and even packaging design on a daily basis – while a client will see 2-5 sites before they meet you, at most, and believe they have an idea of what they want.

Clients try to get involved and insist on moving forward with what they think is right: layouts, navigation placement, logo placement, content hierarchy, content flow, etc. etc. And 99% of the time, they ruin the project instead of help.

We’ve since adopted an “agile” way of doing things – we explain: “listen, we’ve been doing this for years, we know what works for you, and what doesn’t. We’ll build a wireframe first, and explain to you why everything is where it is, then we can both discuss possible changes (if any).” This way, we control the flow of the process, and the client is “kept in his corner”, thus preventing the client from compromising his own project.

To take a quote from the Watchmen movie: “We are saving them from themselves.” And my apologies if others may think this is warped, but I see it very similarly to the way a Doctor would not recommend a certain procedure, because the said Doctor knows that what the patient for is absolutely pointless.

Too bad us web folk don’t have PhD’s. It would surely make clients listen more.