« Never Apologize For Being Too Busy… | Home | How to get a head of the competition »
Simplify Things For Non Tech Savy Clients
By Glen Graham | March 25, 2009
Years ago when I had my first website built ,the only thing I knew about computers at the time was how to send an email.
But I desperately needed a website created for my event planning business,to keep clients informed about my events. Most of my competition at the time were posting pictures from their parties online on party websites like allnightclubs.com ,alltheparties.com and a site called socialstep.com
I use to post on these sites as well but you had to pay a weekly fee ,so I wanted my own website where I could post my own pictures for free.
Well I tried my best to explain what I wanted to the webdesigner working on my project , but he explained every thing to me in tech jargon.
I tend to talk fast but this guy was talking a mile a minute ,and on top of that he was throwing a bunch of web technical terms at me and I felt like a moron.
In the end he did not build the site that I wanted, and I was unable to do any updates to the site as I needed.
My advice to older webdesigners and those just getting into the field is to keep things simple.
skip all of the technical jargon when talking with clients and focus on three important questions most clients want to know.
1. How will the technology make their lives easier?
2. How will the technology grow their businesses ?
3. How will the technology make them money?
Below are a list of web terms and their meanings.
1.Domain name- the name of your site(for example my domain name is thegnrgroup.com Think of the domain name as an apartment that you are renting.
2.Web Host- are companies that provide space on a server (think of the host like a land lord you have to pay rent too.)
3.Flash- is a program used primarily to create animations for the web it’s role is ever expanding and Flash can be used to create entire websites.
4.Dreamweaver- A web program designed to lay out web pages.( with Dreamweaver you don’t need to know how to hand code pages to create pages.)
5.Blog- is a type of website , usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary
6.URL- a Website’s address (exp the url for my site is http://thegnrgroup.com)
7.crossbrowser compatibility- website works with all versions of all recent browsers.(for example internet explorer is at version 8 right now. when I started designing websites years ago they were at version three.
Stumble it!
Topics: Advice, The Cre8tive Process |
March 29th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Pragmatic advice. Useful for students and pros alike. Thanks!
March 29th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
@ Peter
Hey peter long time no see. I’m glad you found the article helpful too often clients are baffled by inflated technical terms.
March 29th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
i might take that and put it on my web site. lol
March 29th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
@ Jamal
LOL yeah some times when I’m talking with another webdesigner it feels like I’m at a seminar. ( i’m not talking about you bro )
March 29th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
i am going to leave that one alone BRO but i understand totally
March 29th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I found this paragraph on the about section of a fellow web designer’s site. It made my eyes glaze over LOL
“This site is coded in transitional XHTML 1.0. You can validate the XHTML and the CSS of each of the pages by clicking on the corresponding links in the footer. The site is programmed in PHP 4.0 with globals off.”
The designer had some cool designs but needs to dumb it down.