Design View | Articles and opinion on design professionalism, technique and culture by Andy Rutledge

“…For aside from the sheer prejudice or simple unawareness, one is apt to encounter such absurdities as second guessing, kow-towing, posturing, nit-picking, and jockeying for position, let alone such buck-passing institutions as the committee meeting and the task force. At issue, it seems, is neither malevolence nor stupidity, but human frailty.”
- Paul Rand, from “A Designer’s Art”

It is not the exception, it is the rule: designers deal with and are often required to manage all manner of human frailty. Because of the different roles and different positions we occupy in a company or within a project our exposure to these factors varies, but unless we take preemptive action their influence on our work seldom does.

Given that irrational and inappropriate behaviors represent clear barriers to design success, you’d think that designers and design agencies would habitually work to remove such influences from projects. What is most common, however, is that the effects of human frailty are regarded as inevitable or are simply ignored until after they’ve spat their corruptive influence upon our work and our process. At which point we complain about our “bad client.” But we are in error; at issue in these cases is nothing more than designer or agency ignorance, laziness, or irresponsibility.

It need not be so. There is a powerful, if not foolproof, antidote to these oft-encountered human frailties. Sadly, this positive, responsible, mitigating factor is employed less often than it should be. It’s called professionalism.

Design professionalism means many things. The elements I’m going to touch on in this article are concerned with how professionalism requires that you understand the designer/client relationship and craft your practice, process, and requirements to facilitate success for your clients. Toward that end we’ll examine how a design professional should understand and work to circumvent typical human frailties.

Human is as human does

I have many times mentioned the requirement that designers be students of human psychology and sociology, and keen observers of human behavior. The direct impact of this understanding on design work should be obvious, but there are other important reasons for possessing this understanding. It’s requirement for our behaving professionally, for instance.

Take, for example, the behaviors cited in Mr. Rand’s quote at the start of this article. These are not inescapable “facts” that occur in a vacuum. They’re the common and logical result of specific circumstances in specific environments, fueled and enabled by other specific events and behaviors. Just as they can be fueled and enabled, they can be mitigated, sidestepped, even prevented. Working to do so is, in fact, your job as a professional.

So let’s examine those pesky behaviors and institutions. Here I want to describe common causes for each and suggest ways to mitigate or prevent them from impacting your people, your process, and your deliverables.

Your ability to prevent second-guessing usually hinges on whom you allow to enlist your services and under what circumstances.

But before touching on these specific cases, let me first suggest the one way to mitigate all of these circumstances and prevent most of these irrational and inappropriate behaviors. It’s actually quite easy: insist that your clients work within your proven process and according to your terms; not you with theirs. You are the design professional. You’re a pro at prosecuting and managing successful design projects. Your clients are not. Your clients are typically quite skilled at managing people, producing products, selling services, etc… None of these skills bring value or experience in managing a design project. Do not allow your clients to pretend to be design professionals or to steal your profession from you. If you adhere to this bit of advice, all involved will fare better for it.

Second-guessing

A client may second-guess your work or your decisions for a variety of reasons. 1) if they’re not fully confident in your abilities, 2) if the individual (client), too, is habitually second-guessed at work or is being second-guessed by a superior in the course of a project, 3) if they are deferring evaluation of your work to a third/hidden party, 4) if they mistakenly believe that they’re supposed to second-guess you in order to achieve a good result (as ridiculous as that sounds, it happens). And there may be other reasons.

Preventing second-guessing
Your ability to prevent second-guessing usually hinges on whom you allow to enlist your services and under what circumstances. For instance, at my agency we seldom choose to work with any client who does not come to us specifically because of what they know about us and/or our abilities. When a client knows little or nothing about us and simply needs a website or an application designed and chooses to contact us along with other potential agencies, we almost always turn them down. The vast majority of potential clients we accept are those who come to us specifically because they trust that we’re the right, even only choice for their project. With the further foundation established in pre-bid discussions, this approach usually guarantees a substantial level of trust by the time we begin working together. In such cases, second-guessing is a rare occurrence.

Other circumstances, too, can invite second-guessing: client-side “teams” where multiple individuals pretend to share responsibility (more on that later), stakeholders or decision-makers who are hidden or are removed behind layers of administration, a single primary contact who lacks full authority on the project, etc… For most cases, do not allow your clients to behave in these ways. Remember, professionalism requires that you insist on your clients behaving professionally, too.

1. Before taking on the project, find out who has ultimate authority for approval. Insist on working directly with that individual (alone, if possible).
2. Except for complex projects where different individuals are responsible for different components of the project, do not allow your client to assign a “team” to the project, where responsibility is shared. Shared responsibility means no responsibility. The buck must stop with one individual who has responsibility and authority for all decisions, else no one does. If your client refuses to designate someone to this role, accept the client only if you have extra time and money to spend on foolishness and shenanigans.
3. If the potential client wants to designate one individual to work with you or your agency but that person does not have full decision-making authority, there will be little chance for success. You should likely decline such projects.

If the owner or manager on the client side is the one with final authority but does not have time to work directly with you, he also does not have time to bring off a successful project. If this person refuses to give full project authority to a single employee, he either has control issues or is employing the wrong people. Neither of these situations is good for you.

Posturing

Posturing may have several incarnations (and I’m not sure which one Mr. Rand had in mind in his article). One form of posturing is when multiple people are involved on the client side and one or more individuals try to outdo one another in order to establish internal “territory.” Another form is when the client believes it necessary to engage in posturing directed at you or your agency because of insecurities or a desire to establish some sort of political superiority over you (which among other things leads to second-guessing). Generally, this is done in order to exert strong influence over your design work because the individual suffers from trust or control issues.

Preventing posturing
Simply possessing and adhering to your own professional standards goes a long way toward keeping this sort of childishness out of your projects. If you accept only those clients who want specifically to work with you, it is unlikely that they’ll be the sort to engage in posturing. If you insist on working primarily or entirely with the individual with ultimate authority on the project, there’s little chance of this sort of behavior among your client’s team.

Perhaps the best way to prevent having to deal with posturing is to spend adequate time in direct discussion with your potential client before accepting them.

Beyond that, unless you are careful and deliberate in your pre-bid discussions, this sort of behavior is hard to circumvent. Perhaps the best way to prevent having to deal with posturing is to spend adequate time in direct discussion with your potential client before accepting them. If you have a good grasp of behavioral indicators you should be able to spot troublesome tendencies during those important initial conversations. If, however, you are more interested in simply getting every client to agree to work with you in your blind pursuit of profit, you must take (and you deserve) what you get.

Nit-picking

Nit-picking, like second-guessing, typically has its roots in the client’s lack of confidence in a designer’s abilities. Alternately, it could be the result of a client’s belief that design is mostly about aesthetics, and “everyone can be a decorator” …or the client’s belief that designer/client collaboration requires that the client engage in design. Or it may simply be that the client is compelled to nit-pick in an effort at posturing. Or perhaps—because of your asking their opinion about design issues in discovery—they feel the need to try and impress you by adding their touch to the designs. Still further, this behavior may stem from the mistaken idea that the design work is meant to please them (the client) and not their website/app visitors or users.

Nit-picking prevention
One of the surest ways to prevent a client from engaging in nit-picking is to first make clear that as the design professional you, not the client, will be engaging in design. You might even go so far as to put that into your contracts where you can get your clients’ signed acknowledgement. If they trust you to do your job, there should be no problems going forward. In pre-bid discussions I always make clear that I and my staff won’t be asking any design questions in our discovery. I explain that instead we’ll be asking about aims, needs, and constraints, and then as design experts we’ll craft the design that meets appropriately with those (client/user/brand) aims, needs, and constraints. If the potential client expresses confidence in this approach, it bodes well. If they seem confused or dubious about this approach, I know to be otherwise very careful in evaluating their suitability for working with us.

In your pre-bid discussions, find out how your potential client intends to participate in the project. If they are predisposed to helping with the design work, you may be inviting problems by taking on the project (depending on the specific circumstances). Know also that if you make a habit of asking design questions of your clients it is likely that they will feel compelled to impress you with some semblance of design acumen, whether they possess any or not. It is difficult to escape from this trap and I highly recommend that you do not place yourself in such a position.

Additionally, it is best that in pre-bid discussions you work to discern whether the potential client is most interested in a design that pleases her or one that pleases her visitors/customers/users. If it’s the former, you must plan to make an effort at reeducating your potential client if you are to salvage any hope of success. If the potential client understands that the design is meant to serve her visitors and users, chances for success are greatly increased (but do remain vigilant and diligent in your further assessment about the client’s predispositions!).

Jockeying for position

If you are unwise enough to take on a client who insists on assigning a team of non-stakeholders to the project, you are inviting several inappropriate behaviors from your client; the most prominent of which may be these individuals’ jockeying for position in an attempt to impress the boss. In such a hellish environment, a good suggestion from one individual on the client’s team is not so much rewarded as it is bait for competition. As none of the participants has any real authority, their only reward is to outmaneuver and beat back their coworkers. Instead of moving toward success, the participants merely keep score. But there will be no winners, just a bunch of losers; you and your client among them.

Prevention
The surest way to prevent this sort of jockeying for position is to require that your clients not involve anyone in the project who does not have authority. True, it is not uncommon that an owner or manager or CEO may desire to have several others involved in the discovery process in order to ensure that requirements and concerns are fully expressed. And this is generally not a problem. However, you would do well to insist that their influence is removed going forward and that only those with ultimate authority then be engaged in the project.

One way to explain this requirement is to point out that design is not a negotiation. Point out that you, not they, are the design professional adept at crafting appropriate and effective solutions.

One way to explain this requirement is to point out that design is not a negotiation. Point out that you, not they, are the design professional adept at crafting appropriate and effective solutions. Internally negotiated results are almost always corrupted results. The only people who need to work to impress the client authority figure in the course of the design project are the designers. All else is distraction.

Committee meetings and task forces

Committee meetings and task forces are ever made up only of 3 kinds of people: those who seek to share in glory without having to accomplish anything, those who want to influence outcomes without being burdened by responsibility, and those who are there by requirement yet have no stake in or enthusiasm for any outcome. The consistent feature of committees and task forces is the utter lack of specific responsibility. In what world could these people positively contribute to a successful design project? Such a world does not exist.

Prevention
This one is easy. As has been said several times so far, you are the design professional so your clients must adhere to your processes. If you do not require committee meetings, do not allow them in your project. If your potential client does not agree to let you to manage the project, he is not ready to work with professionals and you should not engage him. This is something you need to know before you have signed any contracts.

Professionals have responsibility to control the issues of process and standards that contribute to or detract from success. If you invite or allow committees or unaccountable project task forces into your process, you deserve the misery you get. That’s really all that’s necessary to say on this matter.

Conclusion

After reading this article, to some of you it may seem like I’m simply advocating control for its own sake. On the contrary, I’m advocating doing what is necessary to ensure the highest chance for project success for your clients and their visitors and users and customers. That’s what this is all about: your client getting the best possible result from engaging your services. As a professional, you’re the one burdened with the responsibility to bring success. Meeting this responsibility means you must dictate the process in order to deliver an uncorrupted product to your client.

Surely this is not all so novel. A smart client does not tell the architect how to prosecute a project. A smart patient does not tell the physician how to diagnose or prescribe a course of treatment. A smart client does not instruct his attorney on what precedents are applicable or what approach to take with the judge or jury in his case. Where professionals are needed, professionalism requires that the professional prescribe the pertinent processes and work. This is not to say that you should not invite your clients’ participation, just that you should be the one to determine the specifics of that participation. Of course, this also requires that you be very good at what you do, else you will not know how to proceed (and that’s not very professional).

Your clients are not generally aware of the dangers inherent in certain approaches and behaviors that they may intuitively want to bring to a design project. It falls to you to do the right thing, even if your client might disagree. You therefore must often invest time and effort at educating some potential clients. You must learn which clients are worthy of that effort and which ones are not. Otherwise, it is generally appropriate to avoid clients who come to you with projects whose characteristics will not allow for success.

So, to sum up:

• If you are professional, it requires that you actually exercise your profession and that you behave professionally—part of which means requiring the same behavior from your clients
• You must insist that your clients adhere to your process, under your terms.
• Your client knows how to manage people or produce products or offer services. They seldom know anything about managing a design project. As a professional, you must not let them do so.
• Design professionals don’t need to be managed. They need to be invested with trust; else they need not be hired. If your potential client does not trust you to exercise your profession, they have made a mistake in considering hiring you. Hold potential clients to that measure before accepting them as your client.
• Have standards and requirements and hold to them. If your client begins to work counter to your better judgment, call them on it. Make clear what must happen in order for you to deliver success. If you do the required work in the pre-hire period, you will likely not have to worry about any of this.

Remember, even fools can get lucky, but discriminating results come mostly to those with discriminating tastes. Discrimination, evaluation, standards, defined expectations; these are the hallmarks of prepared design professionals. Prepare yourself.