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I am not a designer, so correct me if i’m wrong, but I would have thought that referring to other sites would kill a designer’s creativity.

Although I would rate myself a lot more web-savy than what most designers make their clients out to be, maybe a better approach would be to ask the client what he wants to achieve and then give a reference as an example. If he can’t explain what he’s trying to achieve, then don’t accept his example.

posted at 07:54 am on August 14, 2007 by Fahed Bizzari

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It’s part of my day to day business to try to figure out what a client want’s if he says “it has to be like XYZ, but …”. I think it’s still better if the client makes these comparisons than if he defines technical or design aspects by himself if he has no clue what he’s doing.

posted at 10:16 am on August 14, 2007 by Adam Kay

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It’s not necessarily the clients fault when he/she can’t articulate his needs, it’s simply a lack of understanding on their part of this relatively new thing call the ‘web’ that everyone’s going on about. Often, when a client uses another website as a comparison, it is not that they want their site to look like the example, but rather that they want their site to provide a similar user experience and it is then the designers job to fathom which elements of the site are indeed required for that experience and use his design skills to provide that in an attractive/stylish/innovative way that fits r even stretches the design brief.
Sometimes a client’s wishes can stifle the creative juices of the designer – some jobs can be simply dull, but for a small agency or freelance web designer these jobs must be suffered in order to put food on the table.

posted at 11:36 am on August 14, 2007 by Keith Murdoch

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Shouldn’t the article be called “Design by Simile” – don’t worry just me being pedantic :)

posted at 12:01 pm on August 14, 2007 by Steven Killen

5 Agree

Steven I think Your right about the title of article im not pedantic but it’s something that can be changed. What do You think?

posted at 03:30 pm on August 14, 2007 by Tomek Gorski

6 Expertise+Experience

I agree with most of the commenters and article’s author have said. Clients always get excited after they see something new on web: new development, new fancy stuff or whatever eye-catching thing they found.

Since the beginning of my work life (after be conscious that kick clients wasn’t good idea -when they came up with this stuff ¬¬), I listen+take note of features clients asked (among useful/useless), then review the list, make a quick classification and finally a initial budget based on this high level requirement: simple.

Keep the EXAMPLES (google, amazon, ebay, flickr, etc ) as references but BUILD UP your OWN IMAGINARY EXAMPLE with all you now have and also try to identify/recommend some unique feature that will turn UNIQUE to your client on the web. Remember highlight this to your clients: you might look great like eBay, but being unique, you will look BETTER.

If your client really insists, you could use the budget as a leverage to make the client understands what some features are nice but expensive, and certainly won’t become in profit.

Finally … about the articles’ title, I think the author wanted to be SOPHISTICATED!

posted at 05:09 pm on August 14, 2007 by Chris Tapay

7 Design by Metaphors

Pretty good article, but I also agree, the title was a little bit misleading.

A real article on designing with metaphors is more like:
Visual Metaphors: 7 Rockstar Examples on the Web

posted at 06:37 pm on August 14, 2007 by Andrew C.

8 Nice reminder

I tend to get frustrated especially when client tries to use technical terms, not really realizing what they mean. It would actually be better if they first would use a general concept, like “website like flickr”, because it gives you the chance to find out what it is about flickr they like.

posted at 10:31 pm on August 14, 2007 by Ove Klykken

10 Speak his language

One of the most difficult aspects of effective communication is trying to speak the same language. Some people believe they will be perceived as an expert by using lots of technical terms. Personally I find it better to try and build trust with clients by showing them that you understand their needs. And this is best achieved by being able to put into words and then action what it is that they want.

posted at 02:22 am on August 15, 2007 by Nathaniel Eliason