Designing A Website For a Client That Doesn't Know What They Want

I'd tell him that the functionality and purpose of the site are his responsibility, you're just creating it.

Drop him? He's not worth it, plus, it seems it's going to be a hassle for you. Point him to another vendor...warrior forum seems to have a lot. :p

*wispering* Or send him over to me.

Either way, if you're a bit frustrated at him, then I really suggest you stop because stress isn't worth it in this area, especially not you.

Just tell him to give more details about the website and say you can't start to work with him if there is no information. You only responsible to create the website that they want or maybe you can charge more for consultation.

I also have a client that clueless like him and just ended up with say sorry to him, I can't work with guy like this. Just suggest him to another vendor if you can't handle this guy, it's saving your time and you can deal with another clients.

Maybe come up with a questionaire for these kind of clients. Go down the list with various questions that lead you to what he wants. Does he have a business that you are building the site for or is this website going to be the start of his business? Some more details on this clueless client might help us answer better.

A client like that can be the client from hell and the never-ending project. I'd tell him to come back when he knew what he wanted.

You can create a comprehensive questionnaire and go from his answers on that, but he just may not have any answers. If you proceed with this client, you need to write down and have him sign a contract with the complete scope of the project defined. What you will do, what you won't do. How many revisions, etc.

Don't let him make your rules for you. Let him know how you do business. If he can't be specific about what he wants from you (which means there's no way to tell if you've done it right, which means he'll never be satisfied), then don't do business with him. Simple as that.

Have messed around part time with website design for at least 10 years. It started by trying to help a friend with a site for his business and spread to friends of friends and others. Authors, artists, electricians, plumbers, consultants, craftsmen, etc.

All of these folks felt a website would be good for their business..that was there only interest.
None cared about HTML, JPEG, or any other terminology that web developers find important.

BUT, all of them knew what they liked, knew THEIR business better than a anyone else alive and knew a lot more about their business than they could put into words. This meant I may have to do some research to bring myself up to speed on the subject.

My starting point with these folks was to ask them to:

1. Take a look at least three competitive sites and tell me what they liked and didn't like about them. (This defined their personal taste for layouts, colors, navigation, and content.)

2. Provide me with every scrap of information they ever used as marketing material. (This along with ideas scrapped from their competitors sites turned into site content.) Sometimes their business cards were a mess, and we did logo creation or redesign.

3. Provide me a list of their relationships with trade associations, community work, BBB, C of C, current advertising channels, supplier affiliations, and memberships in social groups. (Each of these ultimately turned into a link from the sponsoring organization, and a BBB link carries lots of authority).

4. Provide me with the terms they would use if they were looking for their services on the web. (These turned into the key words for which content was optimized).

5. Asked them to describe in ten words or less what their business was all about. (This turned into their tag line and the focus of the site.)

6. Provide any testimonials they had received from customers to be featured where appropriate.

Today, we still use all the above plus: We may now get search response from topics on inner pages of site; participate in social networks to obtain greater visibility; use blogs to let interested customers be advised of the currant state of the business and specials via newsletter; conduct special offers for people coming to the business via the net; and track the site to prove it's worth to the owner.

What we hope to have accomplished is what the man asked us to do..."make him money". If we have done our job right, this will happen... for him as well as ourselves.

Let us know how things work out.

Well... I've got one more or less like that... The client thinks he knows all and when I try to make him respect some basic steps he won't... I made my original graphics design proposal like a month ago, they said no after 10 days - and I mean the answer was "NO" literally, with no details. I still don't know why they don't like it! I tried to explain to them that they need to tell me what's wrong with it according to them - otherwise I could be doing 100 proposals and they'd all end up being rejected - I'm still waiting...

Looks like we may both have good candidates for the "Clients from Hell" Clients From Hell

Seb.