For Greatest Success, Answer These Questions Before Hiring A Web Designer
I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity.
At Spiral Scout, we couldn’t agree more. We have composed a list of the top 50 web design questions you must ask before starting any design project. The more preparation you put into planning the design of your website or app, the better your chances of success are. When we speak to a client for the first time, it is pretty clear the ones who are serious about their opportunity and the ones who have more prep work in front of them. A lot of people who are building a website or app, generally rush to speak to a designer about costs and the average time to build a website needed before they really know what they want to build in detail. There is work that you can do upfront that will help you to find the best designer or developer for your project and ensure that you can explain what you truly want.
The purpose of these questions is to help you define the design direction of your project and relay it to a designer so they can understand your brand, style, voice, competition, and user personas. Before we can start pushing any pixels and begin a web design project, we meet with our clients and get to know them and their online business. Understanding who they are, what they want their brand to be and who their users are just a few of the things we must get to become experts at in order to build a successful project and a returning customer.
Before we can start pushing pixels and begin a web design project, we meet with our clients and get to know them and their online business. Understanding who they are, what they want their brand to be and who their users are just a few of the things we must become experts at in order to build a successful project and a customer who will refer us to others.
The web design questions, in this first of a two-part blog series, are solely around web design, mobile app design, and some UI/UX questions. Our second part in the series will be around software development questions that are more technical. You can answer a portion of these web design questions before you engage a designer so your first meetings are more productive. And without further ado, here are the top 50 web design questions:
- Tell us about your company.
- What is your company’s history?
- What does your company do?
- Is this a new project for you and your company?
- What descriptive language would you want others to use to describe your business?
- Who is your target audience? (age, gender, income, tastes, attitudes, geography)
- Have you defined user personas for visitors to your site?
- What is the main purpose of the website or app? a. is it to capture leads? b. advertise a service? c. sell a product? d. exhibit your work?
- What are your core corporate values?
- In what ways, would you like to express them to your audience?
- List 3 of your top competitors.
- Can you describe the general competitive landscape of your business?
- How are you different from your competitors?
- What reasons should visitors choose you rather than your competitors?
- Have you done any wireframe mockups of your site or app screens?
- What is the design style you want?
- List 3–5 website/app designs that you like and why, either in personality or visually.
- Name 3–5 brands that you like and why, either in personality or visually.
- List 3 brands that you are distinctively not.
- Do you have a brand or style guide that should be followed?
- Do you have company colors you need to follow?
- List 3 color palettes that you like and why.
- List 3 font types that you like and why. Use a site like Font Squirrel to find ones you like.
- List 3 button styles that you like and why.
- List 3–5 logos that you like and why.
- If you currently have a site, what do you like most about your current website?
- If you currently have a site, what are your top 3 frustrations with your current website?
- What features do your top competitors have that you wished you had as well?
- Is there a user experience on an app or website that you particularly liked and why?
- Do you need someone to write text for you i.e. a copywriter?
- Will you be providing website copy? What is the voice/tone you want to take with users of the site? Who are you speaking to?
- Is there website copy that you like the tone of?
- Do you have imagery, videos or white papers you will use?
- Do you have other websites that you want to incorporate into your main site?
- What features and designs do you see on other websites that you really like?
- What features and designs do you see on other websites that you really don’t like?
- Name the 3 things that are most important in the design of your new website.
- Name the 3 things that are least important in the design of your new website.
- Do you want a custom design or stock design?
- Will you need help with branding?
- Are you going to have a lot of feedback about the designs and want many meetings and revisions?
- Where are you planning to host your website?
- If you currently have a site, do you have full access to your website?
- If you currently have a site, can you provide usernames and passwords?
- Will you need help with SEO services?
- Will you need help with development or will you provide your own engineering team?
- Any other contractors or major stakeholders that will be involved?
- Who or how will you be managing website upkeep?
- Will you be needing help with ongoing conversion optimization? User testing?
- What are your defined budget and expected timeline you are trying to meet?
Having a good answer to most of these web design questions will really move you along in your discussions with a web or mobile designer. It will also make you look a lot more professional as you prepare for your design project.
If a designer or developer is not asking these questions before they give you the average website cost, that is a red flag (read more about the mistakes to avoid when hiring a web designer). If you need help answering these questions, drop us a line at Spiral Scout. We are always happy to help lend a friendly ear and our experience.
Do you have questions you think we should add to our list? What are questions you have heard from designers that helped you transfer your ideas to them easier?
