Client or site visitors

When you do your designing, do you design primarily with the client in mind or with site visitors in mind? The expectations for each of those could be quite different sometimes.

If I'm offering services, I keep the client in mind. As aposed to if I were making a resource website I would be focusing on the visitor more than potential clients.

Most of the time though, if you're doing general designing you can cover both bases at once.

I'm sure you have expertise that your client may not that gives you insight into how visitors will view and react to a website. That's part of what your client is paying for, but I'm sure some are pretty dead-set on what they want, which may or may not take the visitor viewpoint into consideration. It's good you are plugged in to covering both bases.

I focus on designing the site based on what the client wants. If I have suggestions which would attract more site viewers, I discuss it with my client but ultimately they are the main customer of my service.

Interesting question. I agree with AdamC though. If I were designing a website for a client, I would focus on what he wants. You know what attracts visitors and what doesn't in general, but your client knows the best about his website and its targeted visitors.

Originally Posted by Libby When you do your designing, do you design primarily with the client in mind or with site visitors in mind? The expectations for each of those could be quite different sometimes.

you design for whichever needs advocacy. your client *should* know their business well enough to know what their target audience will respond to, but in the event they don't, you need to step in as the technical expert and advocate for the most appropriate solution: if a mom & pop hardware store wants a fully interactive flash solution you should know enough that's an inappropriate solution for their target audience who just wants to see if they carry 3 1/4" screws. at the same time, if a sports competition just wants a microsite for their event, a static page with a jpg of the poster isn't going to be enough to draw in people who don't already know about it.

ideally, what you client wants and what their visitors want are supposed to be one in the same. your job as the designer is to make them want the same thing so you can best tell your client's story.

Those are good points Derek. When you are designing a website for your client, you don't want to just make him a website. You want to make sure that your work helps his business.