The motivating factor for us was the time spent in the design stage. Often we’d send over an initial set of ideas to the client who’d like the look and feel but request that a handful of new elements were added to the page. This led to a design bursting at the seams with elements crammed in until the original design stopped working. In these situations it would be better to throw the initial design away and start from scratch but due to time and budget restraints this didn’t always happen.

Wireframing sites has been a revelation, it’s such a quick process. Wireframing moves the burden of ensuring all the required elements are in the page from the designer who isn’t always in client meetings to the project manager. The speed at which we can create wireframes means that we now wireframe far more pages that we actually design in Photoshop. This helps the programmers as they no longer have to worry about layout on the additional pages. The wireframes also act as a sort of functional specification; the site’s functionality must include everything that is on the wireframes. Wireframes are also far easier to comprehend meaning our developers spend less timing trawling through long written specifications.

The outcome of this is that we’ve started to use a program called Balsamiq Mockups to create wireframes for every project we’re involved in on the design side. Balsamiq Mockups is a great little tool that makes wireframing effortless, and the best part is that it shows the wireframes for what they really are – sketches to show layout not design style.

Imagine the scenario when a potential client gets in touch and asks “I want an e-commerce site like Amazon.com, how much will it cost?”

Now I’m sure you’ve spotted the issue here, unless you know the client works for a massive blue chip company then it’s unlikely they are after Amazon.com. You have to read into the client’s requirements, and in this case they are likely after a fairly standard e-commerce setup.

In these situations it is tempting to go with your gut and quote the client for a standard e-commerce platform, following up as usual in a few days to see if the client is interested. It’s at this point that everything can start to go wrong.

On your follow up phone call you discover that the client wishes to go ahead with their Amazon.com clone. At this point you really need to be clear with the client and confirm the functionality that you’ll be supplying for this project. If you haven’t already sent the client a specification, then send one now and get them to sign it!

If you don’t clarify your position with the client you may run into the follow 3 issues:

1. The client only sees a fraction of the functionality on Amazon.com, probably searching or browsing for a product and the checkout process. They don’t see any of the backend or any of the “clever” stuff.
2. The development team working on the project sees a separate set of functionality and envisages the backend functionality, plus some of the “clever” stuff.
3. The user doesn’t see certain functionality they require but assumes that Amazon.com must have it somewhere and that the development team will code this into the system.

If this void between the client and the development team isn’t resolved then your project is doomed to fail, overrun, go over budget and perhaps even get cancelled.

For jobs such as these it is worth the time spent writing a specification upfront to accompany your quote to make sure the client understands the exact functionality they are getting. Once you’ve done a few quotes they’ll take next to no time to knock up. If you don’t write a specification you run the risk of the project going seriously wrong and costing you time, money and potentially worse of all – reputation.

If you’re a designer this could have just made your job really easy, the client has given you an exact idea of the style that they like. Or they’ve made it really hard and they won’t be happy unless their website or artwork looks identical to the example provided. Who can tell? From where I’m sitting it doesn’t matter, there is only one choice, the right one.

If you’re sat there thinking that you’d rip off the example provided then I’m afraid you’ve just lost a potential client.

In these situations you can really tell designers who take pride in their work apart from those who just knock designs out on production line. A good designer who is worth anything won’t mindlessly rip off someone else’s hard work and talent, they’ll refuse. Deep down all designers crave the warm fuzzy feeling provided by a client’s love of your design. Ripping off another design doesn’t provide this, it just makes you feel cheap, dirty and used.

Copying designs is something that we never do at Evoluted so if you’re a designer that loves creating unique work then why not get in touch.