Web Development in the "Real World" Part 2

Makovision: "What are your goals when you first meet with a prospective client?"

Jeremy Domby: "To find out all the information possible. Knowing what your client's goals is essential to the success of the project. It is also important to try and get an idea of their budget for the project. Knowing this will help you to find the balance between the functionality, and the hours of development. Other important information would be information about design, layout & architecture, navigation, content, & functionality."

Jason Blakeney: "My goals are normally to establish a common understanding of what they REALLY want as opposed to what they THINK they want. Once I am aware of this, I determine the amount of work involved and the various means to which such work shall be accomplished (in-house, sub-out, etc.). I am always aware too of the costs involved (time, money) and thus base my pricing on this and our goal of profit for that particular job. I do this pricing in my head and normally do not give pricing on a website during the first visit. "

Joshua Cyr: "Get as much information I can from them. Not every client knows exactly what they want, so they're usually not going to come out and say, 'I want my website to look like this with these colors, I want my navigation to be like this, and here's a zip disk with a style sheet and all the images.'

"While they won't be like that, all that information is available, and it takes the right questions, and the right coaching to pull it out of them. Most of the time, a rough draft is the best option. Once you have something visual for them look at, they either say, 'This is perfect! I like this and this and this, just make this a little bigger.' Or they'll say, 'I hate this, change this color to red, move the navigation to the left...' Usually not in those words, but you will get some kind of direction from them."

Heather Rosario: "Basically, we try to establish what the client actual needs and wants to accomplish and how we can help them. We ask a lot of questions regarding their purpose of creating a site. Sometimes WE actually have to explain to them what THEIR purpose is and readjust their thinking.

"Then we discuss the graphical layout, such as colors, graphics, etc. When all is said and done, we try to establish an estimated cost, if there hasn't been one previously established by the sales people. This number is usually based realistically on time and different programming intensity.

"Just as a side note, we found it works best if these initial meetings with the client include actual technical people who are working on the site. A good business development team will include a technical person and sometimes even the graphics person. The more information gathered and work outlined at the initial meetings, the simpler the development process will be."

Other articles in this series:

Web Development in the "Real World" Part 1
Web Development in the "Real World" Part 2
Web Development in the "Real World" Part 3