sugarenia.com

Ten commandments, after several months of web design work in my part. Potential clients, please follow these:

1. Have a clear image in your mind about what you want to achieve with your website. Even a draft will do.
2. Try to look around the internet for competitors, and scribble down what you like about their sites.
3. Educate yourself about what’s the fuss about “copyrights”, and learn to obey them. Don’t tell your designer to “take a screenshot of this site and copy it in mine”.
4. Your designer is no teacher. She will help you around the web a little, but don’t except her to guide you step-by-step in how to search for porn sites.
5. Understand that you get what you pay. You cannot pay a lousy 200$ and all of a sudden you realize that “my site looks tacky”.
6. Your designer isn’t your friend. She just works for you, for some hours per day. Don’t expect that calling her at 2 a.m. will make her happy.
7. Content is the word. You must provide your designer with content. No, two competitor links isn’t content.
8. Pay in-friggin-time. If you suspect you don’t have enough money for your new site redesign, postpone it until you have.
9. For heaven’s sake, don’t insult your web designer. She’s a human being, probably more tech savvy than you, and sometimes she can’t take even the slightest of sly humour, coming of your part.
10. Finally, if you think you can do it better than your designer, sit down and do it yourself. Spare her the pain.

Of course, I don’t expect any of my current and future clients to do this. But that would be a happy, happy world for web designers.

client, good client