Each client dreams about high-quality design product, emphasizing the main app features, being at the same time user-friendly and engaging. He comes to the product designer with detailed requirements list, describing his visions and expectations, waiting the product designer to create professional product design based on the initial requirements, industry analysis, and his experience.
Usually, above-listed variants work for the creative persons or these ones who are just a little interested in the UI design or already imagine the interface they need.
However, the majority of clients have no any ideas about the interface they expect to have and that’s why their own wishes are quite indefinite. Taking into the account that the client may be unsure in his expectation, the main point on this stage is to build a fruitful relationship of trust between client and product designer. Here the designer requires some informational background and client should be ready to share the required details. So, what may designer ask and why he needs this information and what questions client should be ready to answer?
Choose the designer consciously
The main advice here is to act seriously while choosing a designer. One of the most important things here is trust. If you choose the designer you should be ready to entrust the designer your project.
A good product designer is an artist and at the same time is a good manager. His task is not only to create a quality interface for the mobile application or website but also organize its realization process correctly.
Some design decisions, for example, on Dribbble or Behance are quite complicated for the realization and sometimes even meaningless. The client should be ready the product interface designer will educate him suggesting the most working decision for the exact interface. It is critical to listen to the designer’s recommendations for future product success.
That’s why always award the project only to the person you trust and in whose expertise you don’t have any doubts.
The first meeting: gathering the information
UI/UX designer requires information from different sources for successful project realization.
Today the key information about the product is formed during the project discussion phase. During this discussion a good product ui/ux designer will definitely ask about the following details:
1. General business information (industry, product or services)
This is a background of future work. UI/UX designer should know and clearly understand the client’s business before starting to create the product interface.
The designer should have a clear understanding of the client’s business and industry, tendencies in this area. He should also analyze the products suggesting similar services and know how they solve similar tasks and what suggest to their users. The extremely important information is the information about what makes the product or business unique. What makes the product or company special?
Based on the above-listed information product interface designer will create a unique and working decision for the product interface.
2. Brand book or guidelines availability
The brand is something more than company font, logo, and color. If the client already has a guideline it is important to supply the designer with its copy. Any structured information about the brand gives an understanding of the business and tells a lot about its mission.
3. Gathering information about the competitors
Any business knows its competitors. However, here we should think wider and think about the companies which are not evident competitors from the first sight and analysis them too. Sometimes an extended field of vision may help to discover interesting things.
4. Are there any problems a designer should solve by means of the new interface or aims a new design should help to reach?
The reasons client contact UI/UX team may be different and unexpected. Only after knowing why client contact the team (client’s thoughts) designer may start working on the design, problems solving and client’s aims achievement max effective.
5. What functions should cover the future product interface?
The majority of clients may have a good understanding of what they want to see on their website. A scheme or plan may always be available. The client may have wireframes or hand-drawn sketches. All these may be extremely helpful and give a good understanding of the main requirements and how the user interface should work.
6. Colors perception
The color influence the perception, emotions and encourage certain actions.
Sometimes we need to define it by means of leading questions, for example, cold or warm shades, bright or not, light or dark. Based on the client’s preferences, and users psychology, product UI designer selects background and contrast combinations defining the perfect color schemes.
7. Do you have images?
It is important to understand the availability of any visual materials. This may be photos, illustrations, video and other visual materials which should become a part of the future interface. If the client has them, as the next step, UI designer should check their quality, resolution, and value for the future product interface design.
8. What are expected deadlines?
This is a standard question about the expected time frames. They should be discussed before the project begins. The design team should have a clear understanding of how much time they have for certain problem solving or task realization. The adequate time frames are critical for successful project realization and this should be discussed in advanced.
9. Tools for the design creation
Last but not least, is the discussion of working tools and project delivery. The client should know what delivery files he will have after design phase completion. This question, as a matter of course, discussed in the project discussion stage.
The above-listed list may work as a good start however a lot of additional questions will appear later during the design process. The more information UX/UI designer has before project beginning, the better result he achieves and the more this result meets the client’s requirements.