5 ways to say something needs improvement without offending your client

We’ve all had difficult conversations around improving designs, it can be tricky to keep things positive and productive. How do you say something needs improving without saying it was rubbish to begin with? I’ve gathered up a few of my techniques to help you out!

Focus on their user’s perception

First of all, remember that if you make it personal, the client will feel that it’s personal. Talking about what you like or what the client dislikes means that the meeting will remain subjective — this can often lead to disagreements between you and the client.

But whether or not a website is any good is not based on the client’s opinion or even your opinion as the designer. It’s about the user.

User feedback is a perfect way to get this ball rolling. If you’re not doing any user research or gathering feedback (which you should be!), ask the client if they’ve heard customers talk about the website. Use this as a base for your conversation with the around improvements to try and steer clear of phrases like “I hate that button”.

This also will help the client remove their personal feeling from the conversation and start looking at it objectively.

Stick to facts

By starting with the above approach, you can also start to focus on facts. If 70% of people never clicked on your call to action, its probably time to change it, regardless of whether the client likes it or not.

You can also pull from your pool of knowledge around design or conversion etc. The colour red may be too aggressive for a nursery for example. This is not an opinion, but a fact based on countless items of colour research which you can definitely prove.

Use comparisons

If the ideas aren’t getting through after this, show them some examples of good stuff. Highlights techniques used and the results of these techniques (again, stick to the facts!).

Competitor websites or even just a popular website that you know works, can help to highlight what you’re saying.

Involve them in the decisions

You can avoid a fair amount of issues by getting them involved in the decisions and the design process.

Smaller more regular talks work really well for this instead of big pitches with multiple reveals. I might reveal single pages regularly and then end a series of small meetings with a look across a journey to then cement the idea.

This has worked really well on some past projects.

Lastly, be nice!

Above all, be nice about it. Frame your wording in a positive light and avoid talking about the what's bad. Instead say ‘we could make this call to action a little more obvious’ or ‘that stock image is great but wouldn’t it be lovely to use one of your staff?’. Talk about the benefits of the changes so that there is always a positive spin.

Positive meetings are productive meetings!

Hi! I am Jessica Lovegood — User experience consultant. I wrote this article and many others, if you’d like to know more, check out my website — https://jessicalovegood.co.uk/