Hi Everyone,
Great to be on this forum!
I wondering if I could gauge the appetite for a new tool I am developing to help designers interact with their clients.
It’s aimed at freelancers and smaller agencies and it’s a way to create and organize design briefs from clients.
So a major pain point I have working with my clients is:
Getting a coherent design brief out of them
Getting all the key stakeholders to sign off on it… in a timely way
Getting them to stick to them.
I’m looking to create a platform that offers per-defined templates for your clients to fill out and then share with you. They would be able collaborate with the rest of their team on the design briefs and keep a “history” of discussions and decisions.
I’m thinking to have it that the client buys the subscription and you the designer gets a commission.
Is this something worthwhile? Any takers?
Well I was with you, in theory, until you got here:
Why would they pay for a subscription to a “platform” that they don’t even know they need? Many larger clients may already have a project management process. Most smaller clients get project management services from me, and their participation is perceptually beneficial to them in a hands-off sense. That is, they put their project in my hands, as opposed to, “I’ll pay for this tool that imposes an array of unaccustomed disciplines on me to make it easier for you to handle me.” Surely, any client who sees the projects they give me as discreet one-off’s, as many small business owners do, would never go for it.
All that said, I might be interested in acquiring the use of a right-featured, right-priced tool for the purpose you describe, but to the client, it would be my system.
Who is supplying the “pre-designed” templates.
And how much do they know about the diversity of the industry?
I just see this as yet another dumbing down of the profession to a least common denominator.
Bonne Chance.
Fair point HotButton, my thinking was that the clients would want to be masters of their briefs that they would put together and manage among internal stakeholders and designers they work with.
I agree that clients may not know they need this platform hence my suggestion that designers push their clients to use it, and earn a commission doing so.
I’ve not thought about doing something that designers can use or customize for their own needs.
What pain points would such a platform address for you?
Many thanks
Thanks PrintDriver so they would be simple design templates created by our own designers, but I agree there are many nuances to our business and indeed every designer has their own way of working.
Would you see a way for designers to easily create their own briefing forms, share them with clients and stakeholders a way to better improve communication and reduce dumbing down?
How would that be different than what we’re already doing?
If a client is going to download an app to help them with interfacing with a designer, I’d want one that, say, reminds them when content is due, maybe by intermittently and randomly shutting off their cellphone for longer and longer intervals, the longer they put off doing the work. That might make a point, maybe?
Seriously though, the type of client that would need this would be in no position to be “in charge” of their own work, and probably wouldn’t have enough use for it to justify the expense. The next step up is the client who knows what their end result wants to be and hires a designer for their expertise and collaboration skills. The step above that puts out requests for proposals and already knows exactly where they want to go and needs a design firm to implement it in a forward thinking fashion, not a phone app. I’m not seeing a heck of a lot of room in there for an app such as yours.