Stupid, Stupid Client.

I was speaking with an interaction designer at work the other day. He'd been managing a particular client engagement, and was remarking on the inability of that particular client to remember a design decision from day to day. He wasn't complaining; he was mostly reflective, and wondering why the client was unable to achieve a sense of focus and clarity around the product as it was being designed. The client was an entrepreneur, and founder, and this particular product was to be their flagship offering. Why, then, couldn't they remember details and conversations, and make concrete decisions to move the product forward?

I've heard this, and similar questions, a lot in client-services:

• Why is the client making a decision in this part of the product that doesn't consider that part of the product?
• Why is the client re-hashing decisions that were made weeks and months ago?
• Why is the client so myopic, focused on such insignificant details?
• Why is the client so high-level, seemingly uninterested in any details?

All of these questions seem to imply an unstated point: why don't they do things my way? Why is the client being so stupid?

There's a simple answer to the question, but it has complex implications. The client isn't stupid. They aren't doing things your way because they don't know what you know, and they don't think about products and problems the way you think about them.

Assuming you are a competent designer, you've developed a tacit process for solving problems. You know what steps to take, and when to take them. You've worked on similar problems and projects, and you can anticipate how things will turn out ahead of time. You can leverage your expertise to make informed decisions without all of the data. You can anticipate which visual or semantic changes will work and which won't, and you don't need to produce an artifact in its entirety in order to judge it.

Your client doesn't, can't, and won't. They'll need to see entire design artifacts, completely designed, in order to make decisions. They'll need explicit versions to compare and contrast, with real content and real design elements in place. They won't be able to describe their reactions to aesthetics in any cogent way, and they don't know the right actions to take at the right times to ensure design work is completed successfully.

Where you see a system, they see a discrete component or feature. While you likely consider the user first, they likely focus on the market or technology. And where your motivation is entirely focused on the "designed artifact", it's but one small part to them - often, the most insignificant part.

This is all common sense, of course: why should a client, who likely has no training in design, no background in design, and a small set of experiences with designers, know how and why you go about your job? Why should we expect non-designers to have a rich visual vocabulary, or a strong user-centered focus, or a robust process for solving problems?

As professionals, we achieve something called an "expert blindspot." Simply, we've forgotten what it's like not to know something. We have tacit knowledge built up regarding our methods, process, and the importance of our role, and so we've forgotten just how intimidating a design problem and process can be, and how fuzzy our approach looks from the outside. For clients, this intimidating and vague process is compounded by Things At Stake—often, their job, credibility, or in the case of a startup, their personal fortune. And so anxiety builds, and we see our client make decisions that seem rash, short-sighted, or just plain stupid.

Constantly-Teaching

Good teachers know their students aren't, generally, stupid—they simply haven't learned things yet. And so a good teacher patiently creates an environment in which learning occurs, and acts as a source of knowledge based on experience.

Your clients are your students. You need to teach them what you know. It's not that hard, but it's a constant and time consuming effort. It requires a pro-active stance, where you anticipate what a client will need to know and when they'll need to know it. And, it requires an extremely patient interpersonal style. It's called Constantly-Teaching because it's a continual process. It's a layer on top of your existing design process and practice, and will help improve the quality of your client relationships.

Drive Pro-active Education.

Constantly-Teaching requires a continual and public assessment of the process of design. You'll find yourself asking, and answering, these questions nearly every day.

• What activities are you going to do?
• What does each activity entail?
• Why are you selecting these activities, as compared to any other?
• Where did the activity come from, and why does it work?

For example, when we conduct contextual research, we make an explicit effort to describe the methods we'll use, and it sounds something like this:

In this example, we usually describe the types of synthesis we perform on the data:

Each method is described and rationalized. The value is described. The timeframe is discussed. And the client is, ideally, included.

Include More Touchpoints

This type of meta-discussion of process takes time, and naturally implies more interactions with your client. These aren't necessarily meetings—they are design sessions. I've found many designers to be extremely sensitive about designing with a client present, but this type of facilitated workshop is critical to mitigate the expert-blindspot described above. It literally requires the client in the same room as the design group, often participating in the same activities (including research, synthesis, ideation sketching, prototyping, and more).

At each engagement, I'll clearly describe where in the process we are. I show a simple timeline, and discuss how many weeks remain in the project and particular phase of the process. And, I try to go out of my way to describe constraints that are beginning to emerge.

In the above example, a client can easily participate in design synthesis activities, helping to move around individual utterance cards on a wall and discussing the implications of these statements. By reading and discussing actual quotes from real or potential customers, clients are able to build the same empathetic ties that designers strive to create. This can change entire product development and go-to-market strategies.

Offer Flexibility on Approach

As you educate your clients, they will begin to understand more about the types of things you want to do to help solve their problems. And as a result of this understanding, they'll develop their own point of view about what should be done, when it should be done, and how long it will take. I've found that the most effective form of Constantly-Teaching requires an inordinate amount of flexibility concerning schedule and activities.

We constantly hear clients say things like:

For many designers, this causes anxiety. They see an end-state of a completed, robust, and properly designed product, and they know that it's nearly impossible to develop their vision in such a short time frame. What they fail to realize is that the client's expectation about the "something" that needs to be in market is drastically different than their own, and it can be achieved in a staged manner and with a degree of compromise around schedule. The client needs a footprint, often for product demos, a tradeshow, or a press release—but this footprint need not be comprehensive or complete. We experienced this very conversation recently, and it sounded like this:

The "thing" that the client needs in market is often dramatically smaller than the "thing" envisioned by the designer. By fostering a dialogue, providing flexibility in the schedule, and Constantly Teaching, you can usually find a way to satisfy the client and still drive your design vision that meets user needs and offers robust power.

Have a Passionate Point of View on Content

Where Constantly Teaching demands a large degree of flexibility on scheduling, it also drives a more rigid and passionate point of view on the content of deliverables—the actual design. As you educate your clients, it will become more apparent to them that you, as a designer, offer a unique and highly specialized skillset. Simply, you can do things they can't do. Your advocacy for a particular design solution, often driven by empathy and a user-centered focus, should be supported by conversation and discussion—but it should be generally uncompromising. And you will have achieved the partnership and mutual respect necessary, through Constantly Teaching, to drive your particular agenda and product vision to fruition.

This type of push-back is usually received poorly in a typical agency relationship, one that positions the client against the "vendor." But in an ongoing partnership—one where you've been communicating, in person, two or three times a week, clients will typically accept this type of comment that leverages your expertise. If you've established enough mutual respect through your patient teaching and close communication, a client will typically yield actual design questions to your design expertise.

In Summary

There are good clients and bad clients, but for the most part, your clients aren't stupid. They don't know what you know, and they don't think about the work the way you think about it. Fundamentally, the Constantly-Teaching approach expands the role of the designer and demands a more public method to client services. A designer who embraces this approach will find themselves frequently in difficult situations with clients, in conversations that require quick thinking, and in heated discussions regarding topics of finances, schedule, approach, process, technique, and value. These types of conversations are usually "handled" by a creative director, and mid and junior-level designers will have little or no training in these types of interactions. Given the opportunity, they'll fail—likely more than once—and the failure can have large repercussions. But for those who are allowed to practice, and if they receive mentorship and guidance, they'll soon find they've formed relationships with clients, and they'll begin to understand why clients do and say the things they do. These designers will be empowered to reach out directly to clients, and as they are Constantly-Teaching, they'll gain an unprecedented level of meta-awareness—and confidence—regarding their own process and decisions.