Stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime

I’ve found there’s a lot less back-and-forth on design revisions when I request approval on small things incrementally throughout the design process.

First, the colors and typography. Followed by components like buttons, links, and images, etc.

But I’ve typically done all this asynchronously — sending off the assets and waiting to hear back from them.

After lots of folks in the group suggested meeting with clients to go over the design, I’ve been adopting that lately, and it’s made a world of difference.

When laying out a website, there are hundreds or possibly even thousands of decisions to be made. Some of these you make subconsciously, some you do by intuition from your years of experience, and some you may work through a bunch of variations trying to find the right balance.

You make all these decisions based on your expertise.

But, I’m starting to believe not bringing your client in on these decisions is a mistake.

As an example, I recently did a “first look” type meeting with a new client to go over the Home page and blog post template.

As I shared my screen and walked him through each section, I found myself pointing out a lot of the decisions I made…

Instead of the rich black (#000) he had been using for backgrounds, I went with a more charcoal grey color — and showed him the difference side-by-side.

I made the container width on his blog a lot more narrow and showed him how much easier it is to read when the lines didn’t exceed 65ch units.

I pointed out where I had incorporated some elements from his logo into other components on the website.

As I explained what went into each one of these decisions, I could literally see the buy-in happening in real-time.

The client was thrilled with what I had come up with.

It’s impossible to say what his reaction would have been had I just sent him a screenshot and asked him what he thought — but based on my experience in doing that for years now, clients always come back with some requests.

I’ve avoided these real-time walkthroughs because I didn’t want to take the time. Who wants another meeting?

But this 30-minute call likely saved me an hour or two of making revisions or explaining why his suggestions might not be the best way forward.

How long have I been stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime?

Not only was I able to get full approval right then and there, but I feel like I also gained a lot of trust moving forward through the rest of the project.

If you’ve not been meeting with your client to go over deliverables — I’d suggest giving it a shot… And don’t be afraid to share your decision-making process as you take them through.