Mirificam Press

How Much is Too Much? A Guide to Client Control Over Website Content

January 28th, 2008 in Business & Process

by: Matthew Griffin

As web designers, we know the essential ingredients to website success. We spend hours every week blogging, networking, and studying keywords to produce our income. But our clients aren't always—in fact almost never—where we are when it comes engaging the online world. It's our tendency, though, to build sites for them as if they were. So which client needs the blog/product catalog/cms site and which one needs the hands-off site? We need a grid for determining the right grade website to build for each client. Here are some tips that have helped me develop my grid.

1. Don't be greedy
When you take advantage of a client's ignorance and build them something that's way too extravagant for their situation, you will only hurt yourself in the long run. Go into every new project with the mindset that it's your job to make your client successful on the web. In a Christian worldview, this is a given. It's our aim to assist others in taking dominion over their sphere.

2. Be realistic
When you show up for your introductory meeting with a client and they're running IE 6 with ten "free search bars" crowding the top of the browser on a 17" monitor at 800x600 resolution, take pause. It's not very likely that this person is going to spend time managing their website on a daily basis. Don't give them more control than they need. All you're doing is giving them enough rope to hang themselves. In a year or so, the site will be a ghost town with outdated content. Start them off with something basic and move up from there. Focus more on design, and less on content (I'll probably regret saying that).

3. Plan for expansion
On the other side of the coin, keep your eye out for the client that's chomping at the bit to take the internet by storm. It's still important to be cautious and not over-develop, but make sure you keep expansion in mind when you plan. When phase one is a big hit, phase two will be that much more lucrative because your client will have well-deserved faith in your skills.

4. Beware of the quicksand client
Spotting a quicksand client can be a difficult task. A quicksand client is different than scope-creep but even more harmful in my opinion. This type of client does great through the initial project but requires constant hand-holding once the project is complete. This is why it's best to be conservative at the beginning of a project and not give too much direct control to the client. It's much easier to make a change yourself than to re-explain how to make a change to a client fifty times. The only advise I can give for spotting these guys is to keep an eye out for a lack of common sense. That seems to be the only common denominator among clients of this ilk. Beyond that, you're on your own.

I know these tips can help you get a leg up on the situation if you're new to the client relations side of this business. But in the end it just requires time and maturity to interpret the signals. When in doubt, go skinny on the client controlled part of the website. You can always give them more control—just try taking it away, though.

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