The Pitfalls of Ignoring the Customer during Design

I l @ ve RuBoard

Sometimes designers rely too much on their own expertise and ignore the customer as a valuable resource. Too often designers meet the customer for only one day and present a design the following week. Sometimes designs are even presented to prospective customers in order to win a pitch. None of this sufficiently involves the customer.

Why is it wrong to just leap in and start designing? First, the requirements are completely subjective . We can't tell you the number of times we have heard a customer tell us he wanted a design to be "corporate and clean" or "fun, very hip, and easy to use." What that means to the customer often means something completely different to the designer. The question at this point isn't "Are we ready to design?" It's "What does 'clean' mean?" Language is useless in design because any requirement can be interpreted differently by different people.

Second, designing without customer involvement misses out on a valuable opportunity to build customer trust. How do you develop that trust? Simply involve the customer in the design process.

I l @ ve RuBoard